Book description
Henry VIII has proclaimed himself Supreme Head of the Church and the
country is waking up to savage new laws, rigged trials and the greatest
network of informers ever seen. Under the order of Thomas Cromwell, a
team of commissioners is sent through the country to investigate the
monasteries. There can only be one outcome: the monasteries are to be
dissolved. But on the Sussex coast, at the monastery of Scarnsea, events
have spiralled out of control. Cromwell's Commissioner Robin Singleton,
has been found dead, his head severed from his body. His horrific murder
is accompanied by equally sinister acts of sacrilege - a black cockerel
sacrificed on the alter, and the disappearance of Scarnsea's Great
Relic. Dr Matthew Shardlake, lawyer and long-time supporter of Reform,
has been sent by Cromwell into this atmosphere of treachery and death.
But Shardlake's investigation soon forces him to question everything he
hears, and everything that he intrinsically believes . . .
C. J. Sansom was educated at Birmingham University, where he took a
BA and then a Ph. D. in history. After working in a variety of jobs,
he retrained as a solicitor and practised in Sussex, until becoming a
full-time writer. He lives in Sussex.
