Matthew Shardlake Tudor Mystery
6 primary works
Book 1
Book 2
It's 1540, three years after Shardlake's mission to Scarnsea. It is the hottest summer of the sixteenth century. Shardlake is trying to keep a low profile, believing himself to be out of favour with Thomas Cromwell and trying to maintain his London-based legal practice. He has been pulled, against his better judgement, into defending Elizabeth Wentworth, charged with murdering her cousin. But Elizabeth refuses to plead either guilty or not guilty. As a result she will be crushed under weights until she pleads or dies. Shardlake is powerless to help the girl yet she is suddenly granted a reprieve - courtesy of Cromwell.
The cost of the reprieve to Shardlake is two weeks once again in the service of Cromwell. Cromwell, however, is no longer the triumphant, irresistible force he once was, not least because of the ill-fated marriage he arranged for the King with Anne of Cleves. Cromwell is running out of options, but he has one more card to play: Greek Fire, an ancient weapon considered lost long ago, which has turned up again in the hands of two alchemist brothers. This is the kind of gift to guarantee the King's favour, it is also the kind of gift that people kill for. . .
Book 3
C. J . Sansom has garnered a wider audience and increased critical praise with each new novel published. His first book in the Matthew Shardlake series, Dissolution, was selected by P. D. James in The Wall Street Journal as one of her top five all-time favorite books. Now in Sovereign, Shardlake faces the most terrifying threat in the age of Tudor England: imprisonment in the Tower of London.
Shardlake and his loyal assistant, Jack Barak, find themselves embroiled in royal intrigue when a plot against King Henry VIII is uncovered in York and a dangerous conspirator they've been charged with transporting to London is connected to the death of a local glazer.
Awarded the CWA Diamond Dagger – the highest honor in British crime writing
Book 4
In 1543, while Tudor England is abuzz with King Henry VIII's wooing of Lady Catherine Parr, Matthew Shardlake is working to defend a teenage boy, a religious fanatic being held in the infamous Bedlam hospital for the insane. Then, when an old friend is murdered, Shardlake's search for the killer leads him back not only to Bedlam but also to Catherine Parr-and the dark prophecies of the Book of Revelation.
Hailed as a "virtuoso performance" (The Denver Post) and "historical fiction writing at its best" (The Tampa Tribune), Revelation is a must-read for fans of Hilary Mantel, Margaret George, and Philippa Gregory.
Awarded the CWA Diamond Dagger – the highest honor in British crime writing
Book 5
Heartstone is C. J. Sansom's fifth spellbinding mystery in C. J. Sansom's number one bestselling Shardlake series, for fans of Hilary Mantel and Philippa Gregory.
'When it comes to intriguing Tudor-based narratives, Hilary Mantel has a serious rival' - Sunday Times
‘Sansom has the trick of writing an enthralling narrative. Like Hilary Mantel, he produces densely textured historical novels that absorb their readers in another time’ - Andrew Taylor, Spectator
England, 1545: England is at war. Henry VIII's invasion of France has gone badly wrong, and a massive French fleet is preparing to sail across the Channel. As the English fleet gathers at Portsmouth, the country raises the largest militia army it has ever seen. The King has debased the currency to pay for the war, and England is in the grip of soaring inflation and economic crisis.
Meanwhile Matthew Shardlake is given an intriguing legal case by an old servant of Queen Catherine Parr. Asked to investigate claims of "monstrous wrongs" committed against a young ward of the court, which have already involved one mysterious death, Shardlake and his assistant Barak journey to Portsmouth.
Once arrived, Shardlake and Barak find themselves in a city preparing to become a war zone; and Shardlake takes the opportunity to also investigate the mysterious past of Ellen Fettiplace, a young woman incarcerated in the Bedlam. The emerging mysteries around the young ward, and the events that destroyed Ellen's family nineteen years before, involve Shardlake in reunions both with an old friend and an old enemy close to the throne. Events will converge on board one of the King's great warships, primed for battle in Portsmouth harbour . . .
A bestselling phenomenon, the Shardlake series is perfect for fans of Hilary Mantel's The Mirror and the Light. Continue the gripping historical series with Lamentation and Tombland.
Book 8
Autumn, 1552. England is, uneasily, at peace. King Edward VI, now fifteen and mature beyond his years, is already beginning to play an active part in politics. His sister, the Lady Elizabeth, now nineteen, is a prominent figure at court. Edward’s heir, however, is his elder sister Mary. Having refused to renounce her Catholicism in Edward’s increasingly strident Protestant England, she lives in Essex, an unseen but worrying presence.
Matthew Shardlake has returned to practising law, including matters involving the properties of Elizabeth. A shadow hangs over him, however; he has fallen deeply in love with Liz Partlett, nurse to his adopted daughter Mousey—a love that is reciprocated although Liz, haunted by grim events, feels she can never marry him.
As colonization and the slave trade dominate world affairs, a group of English merchants, desperate to find new trading opportunities, sets up a Company of Merchant Adventurers to seek a north-east passage to the Far East. The destination of the projected voyage is kept strictly secret lest Spanish spies should learn of it. After the secretary of the Company suddenly dies, Shardlake is recruited to the post as a competent man who can be trusted to keep matters secret.
Meanwhile a crumbling house by the Thames suddenly collapses, killing several tenants. Shardlake discovers that responsibility for the disaster devolves on the ultimate owner of the land, the Lady Elizabeth. At the site, Shardlake makes a gruesome discovery in the intact remains of the cellar: a torture chamber, and the hideously disfigured body of a Portuguese man.
Shardlake finds himself caught up in a world of spies and double-agents, and discovers that his predecessor as Secretary of the Merchant Adventurers was murdered. He must investigate, and quickly, for the date when the ships must set sail to catch the Arctic spring of 1553 is fast approaching. Rumours begin to circulate that King Edward has fallen sick, and may be dying...