Book description
Spring, 1543. King Henry VIII is wooing Lady Catherine Parr, whom he
wants for his sixth wife. Archbishop Cranmer and the embattled
Protestant faction at court are watching keenly, for Lady Catherine is
known to have reformist sympathies.
Matthew Shardlake, meanwhile, is working on the case of a teenage
boy who has been placed in the Bedlam insane asylum, before his
terrifying religious mania leads to him being burned as a heretic.
When an old friend is horrifically murdered Shardlake vows to bring
the killer to justice. His search leads him to Cranmer and Catherine
Parr - and to the dark prophecies of the Book of Revelation.
As London's Bishop Bonner prepares a purge of Protestants
Shardlake, together with his assistant, Jack Barak, and his friend,
Guy Malton, investigate a series of horrific murders which are already
bringing frenzied talk of witchcraft and demonic possession - for what
else would the Tudor mind make of a serial killer . . .?
C. J. Sansom was educated at Birmingham University, where
he took a BA and then a Ph. D. in history. He lives in Sussex.
