Book description
Autumn, 1541. King Henry VIII has set out on a spectacular Progress to
the North to attend an extravagant submission of his rebellious subjects
in York. Already in the city are lawyer Matthew Shardlake and his
assistant Jack Barak. As well as assisting with legal work processing
petitions to the King, Shardlake has reluctantly undertaken a special
mission - to ensure the welfare of an important but dangerous
conspirator being returned to London for interrogation. But the murder
of a local glazier involves Shardlake in deeper mysteries, connected not
only to the prisoner in York Castle but to the royal family itself. And
when Shardlake and Barak stumble upon a cache of secret papers which
could threaten the Tudor throne, a chain of events unfolds that will
lead Shardlake facing the most terrifying fate of the age . . . 'Sansom
is a master storyteller' Guardian 'So compulsive that, until you reach
its final page, you'll have to be almost physically prised away from it'
Sunday Times 'Deeper, stronger and subtler than The Name of the Rose'
Independent on Sunday
C. J. Sansom was educated at Birmingham University, where he took a
BA and then a Ph. D. in history. After practising as a solicitor, he
became a full-time writer. Sovereign is the third novel in Sansom's
acclaimed Shardlake series, following Dissolution and Dark Fire . He
lives in Sussex.
