[books 2015] Dissolution

[inulro]

1. Dissolution by CJ Sansom

One of the books in this series was dramatised on BBC radio not long ago and it Did Not Suck. Last time I was in the library the first and second volumes were sitting on the shelf, so I thought I'd give it a go.

These are set in the reign of Henry VIII and the detective is a lawyer, Matthew Shardlake. Initially he is a agent of Thomas Cromwell in setting about the dissolution of the monasteries, but I understand that changes later in the series.

Shardlake and his assistant are sent to a monastery on the Sussex coast to investigate the murder of the previous commissioner who had bee sent by Cromwell to evaluate whether the monastery is corrupt enough to be shut down. They get snowed in, and further deaths occur.

So far, so standard. The puzzle is a good one (the crime was obviously committed by someone within the monastery, but who has a sword sharp enough and the skill to behead someone?), though.

I'm often wary of historical detective stories, but this really is a cut above the rest. It made me understand, in a way no reading of history books has, the feeling of living under the reign of terror (and that is really what Henry VIII's reign was). Shardlake himself means well, but is often hard to sympathise with as he is a hard-line Protestant reformer and his ideology sometimes gets in the way of his humanity and his sense. But only sometimes. The monks are all complex characters. Sansom really effectively shows the many ways people feel about reform, that there is no one way "Tudor people" thought.

An excellent surprise to start the year with.

Comments

[mimmimmim.livejournal.com]

I really like those books. They can be really brutal - but then, so was Tudor England.