The Shardlake Series
In honor of novelist C.J. Sansom’s passing, I wanted to recommend his marvelous Matthew Shardlake historical crime thrillers, for anyone who isn’t already familiar. I definitely learned and remembered more about Thomas Cromwell-era England from Dissolution than I did from any textbooks (not that I’ve read any of those in a while, but still). It was all very visceral in a damp-stone-monastery, heavy cloaks, burning candles, teeth-being-pulled-in-the-Tower-of-London kind of way. Also his novels are just super fun, and the Matthew Shardlake character — a sort of proto-detective lawyer — is especially memorable.
Comments 4
I adore these books and Shardlake as a character. There is now a 4-part Hulu show called Shardlake that I hope is good!
Any idea where I can get these books, I checked online and could only find $29 paperback and my library system/network doesn't have it?!?!
Try alibris.com
Awesome, thank you!
Hello! In order to comment or fave, you need to be a current kottke.org member. If you'd like to sign up for a membership to support the site and join the conversation, you can explore your options here.
Existing members can sign in here. If you're a former member, you can renew your membership.
Note: If you are a member and tried to log in, it didn't work, and now you're stuck in a neverending login loop of death, try disabling any ad blockers or extensions that you have installed on your browser...sometimes they can interfere with the Memberful links. Still having trouble? Email me!
In order to comment or fave, you need to be a current kottke.org member. Check out your options for renewal.
This is the name that'll be displayed next to comments you make on kottke.org; your email will not be displayed publicly. I'd encourage you to use your real name (or at least your first name and last initial) but you can also pick something that you go by when you participate in communities online. Choose something durable and reasonably unique (not "Me" or "anon"). Please don't change this often. No impersonation.
Note: I'm letting folks change their display names because the membership service that kottke.org uses collects full names and I thought some people might not want their names displayed publicly here. If it gets abused, I might disable this feature.
If you feel like this comment goes against the grain of the community guidelines or is otherwise inappropriate, please let me know and I will take a look at it.
Hello! In order to leave a comment, you need to be a current kottke.org member. If you'd like to sign up for a membership to support the site and join the conversation, you can explore your options here.
Existing members can sign in here. If you're a former member, you can renew your membership.
Note: If you are a member and tried to log in, it didn't work, and now you're stuck in a neverending login loop of death, try disabling any ad blockers or extensions that you have installed on your browser...sometimes they can interfere with the Memberful links. Still having trouble? Email me!