So I read what was current in the series years ago, but I’ve forgotten most of what was in them, so I assembled what was available again (at least one extra), and am up to the 2nd one.
Matthew Shardlake is a barrister in the days of Henry VIII, and the first novel covers the dissolution of the monasteries, where he has to investigate why one of Earl Cromwell’s commissioners has been murdered in a (fictitious) monastery, under threat of closure. Murder, mayhem and eerie discoveries erupt. I’m into the second one now, where once again Cromwell has commissioned him to seek out a fearsome secret to shore up the earl against his enemies, while meanwhile he has to find out how to rescue a poor, mad girl from the rope.
The series sucks you right in, the author (CJ Sansom) brings to live the sights, sounds, and especially smells of Tudor England and law as it was practised then, and how bloody violence could break out.
My memory is vague as to what I read before, but in one of the later ones he describes Matthew meeting the king not long before he died, and portrays him as the Great Monster I have always believed him to be.
The books in the series:
by throway_nonjw