Adventures in the Mouse House

14. Sovereign by CJ Sansom

I loved the first two books in this series, and part 3 did not disappoint.

It is several years since the last story took place. Shardlake and his clerk/tough guy Barak are sent on a mission by Archbishop Cranmer to accompany the King's Progress in the North in 1641 (an even largely sidelined by history because of what happened next). On their first day in York, a local guildsman is murdered practically in front of them, and it all snowballs from there. Several attempts are made on Shardlake's life, and he even ends up a prisoner in the Tower at one point. Shardlake has a run-in with Henry VIII. It does not go well.

Couldn't put it down. The plot is excellent and I love the characters. I put it on my kindle when I was unwell a few weeks ago & I nearly downloaded the other three books and kept going. But my project for the Easter weekend is to finish all the half-finished books lying around, so I resisted.

I said this with the first two books - this series brings home the reality of the level of paranoia and terror that characterised Henry VIII's reign in a way that no history book ever could. In the first book, Shardlake was an ardent Reformer, in the second somewhat disillusioned, in this one he has come to hate the King and sympathises very much with the rebellious northerners. I love Falco too, but he can be an annoying pain in the arse. I love Shardlake much more - it's painful to watch him lose his idealism and get messed around and abused on account of what idealism he has left (with regard to law and fairness, not religion) and his disability.

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.