Product Description

Henry VIII has proclaimed himself Supreme Head of the Church and the country is waking up to savage new laws, rigged trials and the greatest network of informers ever seen. Under the order of Thomas Cromwell, a team of commissioners is sent through the country to investigate the monasteries. There can only be one outcome: the monasteries are to be dissolved. But on the Sussex coast, at the monastery of Scarnsea, events have spiralled out of control. Cromwell's Commissioner Robin Singleton, has been found dead, his head severed from his body. His horrific murder is accompanied by equally sinister acts of sacrilege – a black cockerel sacrificed on the alter, and the disappearance of Scarnsea's Great Relic. Dr Matthew Shardlake, lawyer and long-time supporter of Reform, has been sent by Cromwell into this atmosphere of treachery and death. But Shardlake's investigation soon forces him to question everything he hears, and everything that he intrinsically believes . . .

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #34434 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-25
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 300 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Murders on the grounds of a monastery, 16th-century intrigue, an unconventional sleuth-readers might wonder if this is a knock-off Name of the Rose set two centuries later, but Sansom's debut is a compelling historical mystery in its own right, with fewer pyrotechnics and plenty of period detail. It is 1537; the English Reformation is in full swing; and Lord Thomas Cromwell, King Henry VIII's vicar-general, is busy shutting down papist institutions. When one of his commissioners is beheaded at a remote Benedictine monastery, Cromwell dispatches a second emissary, hunchbacked lawyer Matthew Shardlake, to investigate the murder. What Shardlake and his companion, eager young Mark Poer, discover is a quietly bubbling cesspool of corruption, lust and avarice. The scope of the investigation quickly expands when a novice is poisoned and Shardlake finds the remains of a girl who served the monks in the monastery pond. Shardlake presses on by testing the alibis of the various corrupt monks, but Poer's objectivity is compromised when he becomes involved with the girl's successor, a bright, attractive woman named Alice Fewterer. As the investigation unfolds, Shardlake survives a murder attempt, and finally returns to London to tie his findings to higher-level intrigue. Sansom paints a vivid picture of the corruption that plagued England during the reign of Henry VIII, and the wry, rueful Shardlake is a memorable protagonist, a compassionate man committed to Cromwell's reforms, but increasingly doubtful of the motives of his fellow reformers. With this cunningly plotted and darkly atmospheric effort, Sansom proves himself to be a promising newcomer.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
It is 1537, and Thomas Cromwell is charged with protecting the newborn Church of England. So when one of his commissioners is murdered in a monastery, he sends his sharpest lawyer to investigate. A debut from (you guessed it) former lawyer Sansom.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From AudioFile
In 1537, England, led by Henry VIII, began its fierce crusade against the Catholic Church, establishing instead the Church of England. Thomas Cromwell led this crusade by way of a severe crackdown on any loyalists of the old church through informants and loyalists. Simon Jones is superb in this account of Tudor England and spans the breadth of characters with smooth transitions. His rapport with the main character, Matthew Shardlake, is immediately clear. As a result, the story unfolds easily, making accessible the formality of Old World English speech. B.J.P. © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Customer Reviews

Dissolution and Diversity
I picked this book up and couldn't put it down. Not only was I captured by the mystery, the writing and the characters - I was amazed at how Sansom could weave such a diversity of people into a historical novel. As a writer in the area of disability myself, I seldom find books that have accurate and compassionate characters with disabilities - Sanson manages this with ease. There are sections of this book that would work well in a disability studies class but even so there is never the sense of being preached at or being lectured - disability is just another aspect of the book which is there because disability has always and will always exist.

very good debut book
this is the debut book by c.j. sansom, which already places him in the elite level of contemporary authors (perez-reverte, eco, et al). his writing style is exquisite. just as good as, but totally different from, another monastery/abbey murder mystery: the name of the rose by eco.
5 stars *****

Murder in the monastery
Since Ellis Peters' passing, I didn't expect to read any new good murder mysteries set in English monasteries. Thankfully, I was wrong, as I thoroughly enjoyed this work by a new author. This book takes place centuries after Brother Cadfael's time, when the British monasteries were falling into the corrupt lifestyle of the pre-Reformation Catholic Church. Of course, Henry VIII's dispute over his wished for divorce sped things along, and the new officials who arose in their master's wake were for Reform, and wished to close the monasteries, as symbols of the "papist" devils. Our intrepid hero goes to a large monastery on the coast to strong arm the abbott into surrendering his monastery to the crown, after his predecessor was murdered there. The plot deepens when two other murders occur, and our hero and his assistant must work diligently to discover "whodunnit", from a list of several likely suspects. There are religious discussions, traces of disillusionment in some of the characters, and all in all quite an exciting tale from beginning to end. I look forward quite eagerly to further books from this author.