”’This is not Thomas More’s Utopia, a nation of innocent savages waiting only for God’s word to complete their happiness. This is a violent realm, stewed in the corruption of a decadent church.’‘I know.’‘The papists will use every means to present us from building the christian commonwealth, and so God’s blood I will use every means to overcome them.’‘I am sorry if my judgement erred.’‘Some say you are soft, Matthew, ‘ he said quietly. ‘Lacking in fire and godly zeal, even perhaps in loyalty.’Lord Cromwell had the trick of staring fixedly at you, unblinking, until you felt compelled to drop your gaze. You would look up again to find those hard brown eyes still boring into you. I felt my heart pound. I had tried to keep my doubts, my weariness, to myself; surely I had told nobody.” A view eastwards along the chancel of the church at the Cistercian monastery of Rievaulx Abbey in the Yorkshire Wolds. The monastery was founded in the 12th century and abandoned during the Dissolution of the Monasteries.I had just been introduced to Matthew Shardlake when he is summoned to the office of Lord Thomas Cromwell. Shardlake has become disillusioned about working for Cromwell. It is arduous work, requiring travel hither and yon, and mentally draining to see the look of fear and barely suppressed loathing that people feel for a representative of Cromwell. To make matters worse the infirmity he was born with, a hunchback, continues to give him more and more trouble with each passing day. Already weary in soul and feeling the physical toil of the past few years the last thing Shardlake wants to do is to be dispatched to the St. Donatus monastery at Scarnsea. But there has been a murder and not just any murder, but the murder of a Cromwell representative while he was investigating the monastery for improprieties. The killer was sending a very clear message to Cromwell by beheading his agent. Cromwell’s own head is lucky to still be setting squarely on his shoulders after he became such an ardent ally of the recently beheaded Anne Boleyn. To prove his loyalty to Henry the 8th Cromwell is fervently enforcing the recent First Act of Succession (1536) dissolving as many monasteries as possible, within the confines of the new law. He is confiscating their lands and gold baubles to help bolster the King’s treasury. St. Donatus is one of the larger monasteries all of whom hope to survive the purge. Although anybody in the know realizes that Henry will not be happy with just a few when he can pass a law, Second Act of Succession (1539), that will bring them all down. Right now it is 1537 and Shardlake can offer some assurances to the abbot that the monastery can still be saved. Haughmond Abbey. The extensive remains of an Augustinian abbey, including its abbots' quarters, refectory and cloister.This was a time of uneasy alliances with Catholics swearing allegiance to the new church not because they necessary believed, but because they wished to keep their property and to keep their heads attached to the rest of their bodies. People used the new laws to settle old grievances, turning their enemies in for Catholic devotion that reminds me of neighbors turning on neighbors in Germany under the Third Reich. Protestants killing Catholics. Catholics killing Protestants. Good lord, all so a king can bed a particularly crafty young lady who would settle for nothing less than the crown on her head before she ministered to the Kingly “crown”. Anne Boleyn was a true Eve, nearly bringing a kingdom down with her feminine wiles and her “progressive” religious ideas. Think of the lives that would have been saved if Henry the 8th in one of his many mishaps had crushed his balls or better yet sliced his dinger off. Are we to believe that his main objective in having so many wives was to procreate an heir? Maybe so, but truly in the course of doing so it is hard not to see him as bordering on sexual conquesting lunacy. I know he was worried about starting a war with Spain and France, but wouldn’t this all have been easier and saved a lot of hanging, beheading, burnings etc. if only Catherine of Aragon had say had an accident in the bath or had a bit of loose stone masonry fall on her head? Not that I wish ill on Catherine. She seems to be the one purity in this whole sordid mess, but would thousands of lives been spared? Shardlake with his rather comely (male) assistant in tow arrives at the monastery to discover that there are more problems than just one murdered man. Needless to say everyone is on edge knowing that the King’s representative needs very little cause to close the monastery and confiscate their lands. Shardlake finds a nest of barely repentant monks still clinging to their idols and traditions. It is too much to expect that people can just flip a switch and do away with beliefs that have sustained them their whole lives. The ruins of Glastonbury Abbey dissolved in 1539, following the execution of the Abbot on charges of treason.A monk is poisoned...what did he know or what did he see? An old murder comes to light of a young girl who once worked at the monastery. Before long Shardlake wonders if he is chasing one murderer or three? He soon discovers that the monastery keeps two sets of books and the missing blue book may be the very thing he needs to find to unmask at least one of the killers. To make things even more irritating for him he finds himself competing with his young assistant for the affections of a young lass who works in the infirmary of the monastery.Shardlake is very dismissive of Catholicism, a true believer in the Reformation, but at the same time he is sickened by the lives that are being ruined needlessly. He certainly feels the pressure to not only uncover the true murderers, but also to reach solutions that will put him back in the good graces of Cromwell. It is a time when people must deny their true nature whether they are homosexual, Anabaptist, or harboring affection for the Pope of Rome. It is always tragic when people who have much more in common than they have in disagreement are killing each other over the whims of Kings. I will definitely be reading more in this series. I’ve heard that the books just keep getting better and better.
First published in 2003, this is the first novel in the Matthew Shardlake series, and introduces us to our unlikely hero; lovelorn, hunchbacked, a reformist lawyer who begins the book as utterly loyal to Cromwell’s ideals and ends it plagued with doubts about his role and mission. Shardlake is sent by Cromwell to the Monastery of St Donatus the Ascendant at Scarnsea, Sussex. It is 1537 and the dissolution of the monasteries is underway. Cromwell had sent Commissioner Robin Singleton there with lawyer, Lawrence Goodhaps. Now Singleton has been found murdered and Shardlake is sent to investigate. He is accompanied by Mark Poer, a young man he had taken into his household as a family obligation. Mark has been in disgrace for his dalliance with a knight’s daughter and Shardlake hopes that success in their mission will plead Poer’s case for rehabilitation, while putting him in Cromwell’s favour. However, once they arrive they find Goodhaps terrified and the monks suspicious and concerned about their future. Snow begins to fall, making travel difficult, and the monastery is isolated, with dangerous marshland outside the gates and the possibility of smugglers. Before long, Shardlake is embroiled in an investigation of murder, which reaches back to the trial and beheading of Ann Boleyn – an event which Shardlake attended on Cromwell’s orders. Although this is the first novel in the series, and there are bumps along the way, the character of Shardlake himself already seems like an old friend. The setting – the isolated monastery with a fixed group of suspects– works very well. Mark Poer is not the greatest foil to Shardlake, but the novel introduces other characters who appear in later books. Overall, even re-reading this, it is an assured and excellent debut to a series which has to be my favourite historical mystery series in print. The next books in the series are: Dark Fire, Sovereign, Revelation, Heartstone, with Lamentation due out in 2014. A new Shardlake is an event but, until then, it is wonderful to revisit these books and rediscover how great they are.
Do You like book Dissolution (2015)?
5.0 stars. This story grabbed me from the very first page and kept me engaged throughout the entire book. I do not read as much historical/crime fiction as I do science fiction/fantasy but this book might cause that to change given how much I enjoyed this. I am a bit if a history buff and I was drawn to this story because it is set during the English Reformation, a period I was interested to learn more about. The main character, Matthew Shardlake, is a hunchback, English lawyer working for Thomas Cromwell (the architect of the English Reformation). Shardlake is sent to a Benedictine monastery to investigate the brutal murder of one of Cromwell's men. However, Shardlake's true mission is to arrange for the voluntary surrender of the monastery to the English crown.The book was very well written, with a complex, well structured plot and very memorable characters. This is a great story filled with intrigue, political machinations and realpolitik being conducted under the guise of religion. Highly Recommended!!!!
—Stephen
Krimić smješten u Englesku davne 1537. godine, meni za početak i više nego dovoljno. Zemlja je podijeljena na one koji su i dalje odani papi i Katoličkoj crkvi te one druge koji su uz kralja Henrika VIII i novu Anglikansku crkvu. Naravno, ovi prvi su u nemilosti kralja i njegovih povjerenika. Ozloglašeni lord Cromwell (koji je ljubio pete Ann Boleyn a onda ju, bez milosti, obezglavio) donio je odluku o zatvaranju samostana diljem zemlje. Toj misiji pridružit će se još jedna – istraga o brutalnom ubojstvu kraljevog povjerenika. Odvjetnik Krune Matthew Shardlake, inačica francuskog Quasimoda (barem je mene na njega podsjetio zbog svoje grbavosti), kreće na put na kojem će ga čekati brojne prepreke. Kad jednom uđete u priču, obuzet će vas sve do samog kraja. Običaji koji vladaju u samostanu, karakteri redovnika, njihove spletke, razlike između onih dobrih posvećenih svom pozivu i onih drugih koji su sami odlučili izigravati Boga, za neke svoje sulude ciljeve. Dakle, ako volite krimiće koji se odigravaju u nekim prošlim vremenima, ovo je svakako knjiga za vas. Pored toga što iščekujete rasplet i otkrivanje krivca, sigurno ćete nešto dodatno naučiti. S obzirom da je Sansom pravnik s doktoratom iz povijesti, apsolutna je dobitna kombinacija u ovom slučaju.
—Sandra Bašić
I don't often read books set during this period of English history. I don't know why. But I am glad that I have started. Well, perhaps I should say, that I am glad that I have discovered CJ Sansom because he really brought Henry Tudor's England alive for me. It is that which has made me glad to start reading books of this era.As a crime thriller, this book was a little dull. Hence the 4 stars and not 5 stars. I didn't enjoy it so much for the crime solving. It was Sansom's descriptions of England during the Dissolution that held my interest and kept me coming back to this book time and again, eager to absorb it.I had worked out the killer pretty early on and was not disappointed when I found out I was right. It was who I wanted it to be. Thankyou, Mr Sansom. The twists, however, turn inside and out during the closing chapters and the story is not as open and shut as I had assumed.As an historical crime thriller, Dissolution was subtle but enjoyable and I look forward to reading the second book in the series sometime soon.
—Terri
