Book description
Summer, 1545. England is at war. Henry VIII's invasion of France has
gone badly wrong, and a massive French fleet is preparing to sail across
the Channel. As the English fleet gathers at Portsmouth, the country
raises the largest militia army it has ever seen. The King has debased
the currency to pay for the war, and England is in the grip of soaring
inflation and economic crisis. Meanwhile Matthew Shardlake is given an
intriguing legal case by an old servant of Queen Catherine Parr. Asked
to investigate claims of "monstrous wrongs" committed against
a young ward of the court, which have already involved one mysterious
death, Shardlake and his assistant Barak journey to Portsmouth. Once
arrived, Shardlake and Barak find themselves in a city preparing to
become a war zone; and Shardlake takes the opportunity to also
investigate the mysterious past of Ellen Fettipace, a young woman
incarcerated in the Bedlam. The emerging mysteries around the young
ward, and the events that destroyed Ellen's family nineteen years
before, involve Shardlake in reunions both with an old friend and an old
enemy close to the throne. Events will converge on board one of the
King's great warships, primed for battle in Portsmouth harbour . . .
C. J. Sansom was educated at Birmingham University, where he took a
BA and then a Ph. D. in history. He lives in Sussex.
