Dissolution: A Novel of Tudor England

"Yes, except I haven’t read Winter in Madrid . No, actually, I have. Yes, I have read all of them. Starting with Dissolution . I devoured the rest. Oh, you have got a treat in store! Shardlake is a lawyer and he, too, is in quite a vulnerable position. In Dissolution his job is to go around all the dissolved monasteries to check out what they’re doing and take notes on what’s happening. He discovers a murder. It really is quite clever, because you’re not thinking, ‘Oh, here’s a murder mystery that he then solves.’ There’s so much more depth to the books than that. It’s not dissimilar to Thomas Cromwell in the sense that he’s in danger from the royal family or various powers that be if he steps on the wrong side of them. There are other lawyers with more power and he gets on the wrong side of them, and then he has an enemy. As with Hilary Mantel, it’s about the politics and the power struggles of this Tudor society. Shardlake also has a disability. He’s got a very damaged back, what was called a hunched back in the 19th-century and a ‘crookback’ in his era. That makes him vulnerable physically. He’s not a very well man either. In some books in the series he’s helped by Jack Barak, who is working class and quite tough, who Shardlake is helping to train. Barak gets maimed in one of the incidents they have and loses use of his arm (I think), in order to save Shardlake’s life. It’s a very vicious, violent society. “It’s a very vicious, violent society” The murder is there, but you’re not thinking, ‘This is a murder mystery.’ You’re thinking, ‘I’m in the Tudor times, I’m looking through a window. I’m a silent witness to all of this’ because CJ Sansom is very hot on his research. He was also a lawyer, so he knows the legal stuff and has done lots of legal research. They’re fantastic stories. The series is one long chronicle if you like. He’s written seven so far. The last one is called Tombland, a really gruesome name. It’s a real place, if I remember rightly. It’s also very painful, because Shardlake is really very ill by this time. There’s a lot of bloodshed. Again, he just brings alive a period of history. Because you have a fictional narrative, you really have a story arc that you’re completely involved in. I really recommend people read these two series—Hilary Mantel and CJ Sansom—in tandem, one and then the other. Don’t compare and contrast, just enjoy the whole panoply of fiction because these two worlds together—and I probably have, in my mind almost got them fused—are written by two great writers. When I was reading CJ Sansom, I found myself wondering if I would see Thomas Cromwell going by. It’s the same historical period, written about by two very different writers, but both of them able to really bring you into their world."