Lamentation
1 journaler for this copy...
8 stars: Very good
From the back cover: Summer 1546. King Henry VIII is slowly, painfully dying. His Protestant and Catholic councillors are engaged in a power struggle; whoever wins will control the government. The Catholic party focuses its attack on Henry's sixth wife- and Matthew Shardlake's old mentor, Queen Catherine Parr. The Queen has written a confessional book, 'Lamentation of a Sinner' so radically Protestant that if it came to the King's attention it could bring both her and her sympathizers to ruin. Although the book was kept hidden inside the Queen's private chamber, it has inexplicably vanished. Shardlake's investigations take him on a trail that begins among the backstreet print shops of London but leads him and his trust assistant Jack Barak into the dark and labyrinthine world of court politics, a world Shadlake swore never to enter again.
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My favorite so far of C.J. Sansom's exemplary series. Sansom is a bona fide Tudor scholar, and the extensive endnotes describe both what is truth, what is conjecture, and what is fictionalized in each of his mysteries. Catherine Parr did write such a book though it was fairly orthodox and not as unconventional as noted here in the mystery, and in fact it was published in 1547.
I read the book over 8 months ago and many details escape me now. Perhaps I will reread and enjoy it again! I remember Shardlake going undercover, requiring numerous trips inside the castle, and much intrigue. Mostly I am left with my sense that it was a very good read.
From the back cover: Summer 1546. King Henry VIII is slowly, painfully dying. His Protestant and Catholic councillors are engaged in a power struggle; whoever wins will control the government. The Catholic party focuses its attack on Henry's sixth wife- and Matthew Shardlake's old mentor, Queen Catherine Parr. The Queen has written a confessional book, 'Lamentation of a Sinner' so radically Protestant that if it came to the King's attention it could bring both her and her sympathizers to ruin. Although the book was kept hidden inside the Queen's private chamber, it has inexplicably vanished. Shardlake's investigations take him on a trail that begins among the backstreet print shops of London but leads him and his trust assistant Jack Barak into the dark and labyrinthine world of court politics, a world Shadlake swore never to enter again.
----------
My favorite so far of C.J. Sansom's exemplary series. Sansom is a bona fide Tudor scholar, and the extensive endnotes describe both what is truth, what is conjecture, and what is fictionalized in each of his mysteries. Catherine Parr did write such a book though it was fairly orthodox and not as unconventional as noted here in the mystery, and in fact it was published in 1547.
I read the book over 8 months ago and many details escape me now. Perhaps I will reread and enjoy it again! I remember Shardlake going undercover, requiring numerous trips inside the castle, and much intrigue. Mostly I am left with my sense that it was a very good read.
