Dissolution (The Shardlake series, 1)

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At the monastery of Scarnsea, events have spiralled out of control with the murder of Commissioner Robin Singleton. The main character, Matthew Shardlake, is a hunchback, English lawyer working for Thomas Cromwell (the architect of the English Reformation). The Goldsboro exclusive edition of "Empire of the Damned" by Jay Kristoff will feature block sprayed.

Follow Matthew Shardlake into the dark heart of Tudor England with the rest of the series: Dark Fire, Sovereign, Revelation, Heartstone, Lamentation and Tombland. He [Thomas Cromwell] was holding up a casket [small box] and studying the contents with a contemptuous frown, his wide, narrow-lipped mouth down-turned above his lantern chin. He questions everything, which left me in a continuous state of suspense until he found his answers. Not only is the king the head of the church, but he has been waging battles against those not to happy to be split from the Church of Rome.Cromwell has carried out a thorough survey of all monasteries and religious houses, and is waiting for an opportunity to dissolve them.

A view eastwards along the chancel of the church at the Cistercian monastery of Rievaulx Abbey in the Yorkshire Wolds. It seems a universal rule in this world that people will always look for victims and scapegoats, does it not?

Matthew, who was working for Thomas Cromwell, wanted to impress his boss and was adamant to solve the case as soon as possible but alas mystery turned murkier and another murder was committed. I will try things by audio, as it may have been my trying to trudge through the book alone that left me soured the first time I tried to digest the plot. I loved this book for the great character development and visualization of Tudor England, but it is also a great mystery. But then I got over it, realized it was not going to follow the path of that hated book, and I got into it.

Over the last year or so, whilst reading and reviewing books in other series, I have occasionally come across references to C J Sansom's Shardlake books, so thought it was time to give them a go. The story seems accurate and informative as well as entertaining, I enjoyed the investigative process, and I didn’t guess the perpetrator. His jaw held thus made me think of a great trap that at any moment might open and swallow one whole with a casual gulp. This was something I went into quite blind, and rather different from what I usually read, but it was so enjoyable, and so fresh.His disability seems uncomfortably close to being a plot device just to make him seem different, something of an outsider. It will not surprise you to know that the original murder is not the only one in the book, and other crimes appear. He has also written Winter in Madrid, a thriller set in Spain in 1940 in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. This book combines a classic whodunit scenario with the intrigue of the sixteenth century; it is brilliantly handled.