Customer Reviews
Another great read by CJ Sansom - By: A. L. Mcleod, 07 Jan 2009 
This is another great read by CJ Sansom. As Matthew Shardlake travels to Yorkshire there are some interesting encounters ahead! The author brings to life the wide cultural differences, the religious & political problems & difficulties of distancein Tudor England. I particularly enjoyed the details of the huge Court following the King around the country. Highly recommended.
A Gripping Read! - By: Canny Yatton, 25 Nov 2008 
The plot of this very readable & exciting novel is based on actual historical doubt about the validity of King Henry VIII's claim to the throne. Sansom very convincingly conveys the web of suspicion & fearin which his hero finds himself caught. Torture & execution threaten all who conspire against the King & the novel reveals how complex & dangerous the political & religious situation was.
Also shown is the terrible hardship suffered by ordinary people as a result of the dissolution of the monasteries & the understandable anger against the reformist `southrons' who descend on York as part of The Progress. This picture brings to life the upheaval & excitement caused by King Henry's arrival with 3,000 soldiers, courtiers, servants & whores: the sounds, the smells & everywhere the mud.
The reader appreciates the historical authenticity; the characters, some real & some fictional, blend comfortably with each other.
It is difficult to create dialogue which gives a Tudor flavour without being tiresome, & there were some jarring modernisms, but the balance was nicely done on the whole. Don't expect the finest prose & do expect occasionally to wish for a pruning-hook. And do you agree that Jennet Marlin must have been a big strong girl to carry out her various deadly acts?!
Diverting but doesn't cut the mustard - By: Elizabeth Taylor, 20 Sep 2008 
I have not read any other works by the author so for me this is the first time I've met the character. The cover caught my attention, & as I enjoy detective novels & historical fiction, this looked the book for me.
The basic storyline is that our central character, a lawyer, is ordered to assist with some legal proceedings which take place during Henry VIII's progress to the north or more particularly York. The placein time is just after the great Northern Rebellion & during his marriage to the young & flakey Katherine Howard. The lawyer accidentally discovers some documentsin a box, which as they implicate the legitimacy of the King's right to be king are highly contentious, as a result of the discovery there are attempts on his life. The detective component is his un-covering of not only the meaning & importance of the documents ,of which he only read a small part, but also who is behind the attempts on his life.
As a historical novel I felt there was not enough development of the themes behind the rebellion or the motives of Henry VIII & that means the surrounding characters are a little wooden, and, therefore not totally convincing. This area of our past is somewhat difficult to comprehend as those days of religious fervor are somewhat remote & complex. The major themes are brushed over & the daily grime & grot of Tudor England was also not conveyed so it didn't make me feel what it was like to be alive then. There were some fascinating insights into how the progress worked on a day to day basis trundling slowly like a giant greedy insect through England eating & devouring as it went on its merry way. As a detective/thriller it doesn't work that well as there is simply not enough action. The incidents as they occur are very few & far between with the filler being the descriptions of the progress, the surrounding characters & fat, bloated Henry hovering, menacingly somewherein the background. I kept on faithfully reading each day waiting for the big crime but it never came. And most disappointingly half way through it became obvious to me who the culprit was & I kept on wanting to shout out its them, its them.
I did however faithfully read through right to the end as to be fair to the author I was interested enough to want to read how all the loose ends were tied together. The last 20 pages where its all explained are more captivating but ultimately I was not grabbed by the characters or story.
The best Shardlake yet. - By: Carole, 15 Aug 2008 Having read the previous Matthew Shardlake novels I was eager to read this one. I wasn't disappointed - it is easily the best one yet.
What I liked most was the brilliant evocation of the cruelty of Tudor England. The religious fanaticism has been done before, as has the treachery & power politics along with the corruption, but the way these were all melded together & the thorny subject of judicial torture thrownin it made the story basically become a lot darker.
The idea of the events taking place within the enclosed world of the Royal Progress was a nice way of taking a murder mystery staple plot device & making it relevant to the period, a kind of Tudor "Murder on the Orient Express" if you like.
CL Sansom is a very good writer, he keeps the suspense up well & uses a lot of period detail. overall excellent, although I have to admit working out who the killer was quite a way before the end, even if I hadn't worked out exactly all the details.
Very Disappointing! - By: S. Schmeitz, 07 Aug 2008 
most of the positive reviews of this book must be coming from C.J.Sansom fans &in fairness the first two & the fourth novel of the Shradlake series are brilliant.
This third sequel though appears to have been part of a publisher's deal that had to be written without the author's heartin it.
The story is dragging on endlessly without many peaks, Shardlake is completely out of his wits & not himself. There are MANY mistakes like one minute he is riding, next sentence he is not, then he decides to wear a daggerin future & only the following sentence he is wearing one without having had the opportunity to obtain it. There are dozens of those minor mistakes which really annoy me especially since they appear within 2 subsequent sentences. This book is badly written & the story of stale. You can safely skip this one & proceed with 4th sequel.
