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Summary
Summary
In this sequel to Dissolution, it is now 1540, and Shardlake has returned to practicing law in London. When he is called on to help a friend's niece, charged with killing her cousin, he has no idea it will force him back into Cromwell's dangerous schemes.
Summary
It is 1540 and the hottest summer of the sixteenth century. Matthew Shardlake, believing himself out of favour with Thomas Cromwell, is busy trying to maintain his legal practice and keep a low profile. But his involvement with a murder case, defending a girl accused of brutally murdering her young cousin, brings him once again into contact with the king's chief minister - and a new assignment... The secret of Greek Fire, the legendary substance with which the Byzantines destroyed the Arab navies, has been lost for centuries. Now, an official of the Court of Augmentations has discovered the formula in the library of a dissolved London monastery. When Shardlake is sent to recover it, he finds the official and his alchemist brother brutally murdered - the formula has disappeared. Now, Shardlake must follow the trail of Greek Fire across Tudor London, while trying at the same time to prove his young client's innocence. But very soon he discovers nothing is as it seems ...
Author Notes
Christopher John "C.J." Sansom is a British writer of crime novels. He was born in 1952 in Edinburgh, Scotland, and was educated at the University of Birmingham, where he earned a B. A. and a PhD in History. He practiced law, before quitting to work full-time as a writer. He currently lives in Sussex, England.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Matthew Shardlake, the marvelous hunchbacked 16th-century attorney who first appeared in Sansom's Dissolution, returns in this spellbinding Tudor-era tale of murder, conspiracy and betrayal. Shardlake normally handles property cases and the occasional dangerous mission for Lord Thomas Cromwell, the king's high counselor. Now he is engaged to defend a young woman accused of a curious murder, and the case seems hopeless. The girl refuses to speak and, under English law, unless she offers a plea in court she will be slowly crushed to death. Cromwell offers Shardlake a two-week stay of execution if he will agree to undertake a secret mission. Desperate to save the girl's life, Shardlake agrees. Rumors abound of a new and terrifying weapon called Greek Fire, and Cromwell orders Shardlake to find it, along with its secret formula and the two alchemists who possess it. Before Shardlake can even speak to the alchemists, they are brutally murdered, the formula and Greek Fire go missing, and horror and death are unleashed. Fortunately, Shardlake is aided by Jack Barak, a capable rogue working for Cromwell, and his old friend, Guy Malton, a peculiar apothecary. Sansom's vivid portrayal of squalid, stinking, bustling London; the city's wealth and poverty; the brutality and righteousness of religious persecution; and the complexities of English law make this a suspenseful, colorful and compelling tale. Agent, Antony Topping. (Jan. 17) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Tudor barrister Matthew Shardlake (Dissolution, 2003) plumbs the mysteries of Byzantine flame-throwing as he fights for the life of an accused murderess. The clever hunchbacked investigator is again dragged into the political machinations of Henry VIII's chief minister Thomas Cromwell when Shardlake's defense of Elizabeth Wentworth, a beautiful 18-year-old accused of murdering her young cousin Ralph, fails to move the judge. Elizabeth's refusal to speak or plea has resulted in her being sentenced to peine forte et dure, death by the slow imposition of rocks on her fragile young body. The horrible fate is postponed by the intervention of Lord Cromwell, who needs Shardlake's investigative skills and needs them now. Cromwell's stock with His Majesty plummeted when the king came face to face with his latest wife, Anne of Cleves, a hefty, un-lovely German protestant princess picked out by Cromwell. Now Cromwell's bitter enemy, the Catholic Duke of Norfolk, is dangling his young niece Catherine Howard before the easily distracted monarch. To regain the king's favor Cromwell has promised a demonstration of Greek Fire, a sort of Eastern Roman napalm, just the ticket to keep the French and Spanish at bay. Alas, the formula for Greek Fire, which had been in the hands of a shady solicitor and his brother, has gone missing, and bodies have started to drop. Cromwell teams the barrister with Jack Barak, a tough, trusted employee with little respect for lawyers. The seemingly ill-matched investigators start picking through all levels of London society, arriving ever just too late after pertinent murders and arson, dogged everywhere by a pair of singularly repulsive assassins. The usual Renaissance muck and stench are aggravated by the worst heat wave anyone can remember. And there is a bit of wistful romance for the lawyer who has no idea how attractive he is, handicap notwithstanding. Rich period detail and solid history underpin the totally imaginary Greek Fire business. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Hunchback Matthew Shardlake may be one of the sharpest lawyers in sixteenth-century England, but his skills have failed him in the defense of a friend's niece accused of murder. When Henry VIII's vicar general, Thomas Cromwell, spares the convicted girl's life for 14 days, Shardlake knows the reprieve comes at a hefty price: in that time, the lawyer must find a lost cache of dark fire, the liquid weapon of mass destruction Cromwell has promised to deliver to the increasingly ill-tempered king. With the help of one of Cromwell's impudent servants, Shardlake pursues clues leading him to alchemists, aristocrats, and barristers alike. But in a country bitterly split between Roman Catholics and the newly formed Church of England, it's difficult to distinguish friend from foe. The body count climbs ever higher as Shardlake inches closer to the truth--and toward the deadline for his client's execution. Like his gripping debut, Dissolution BKL Ap 1 03, Sansom's second Shardlake thriller is suffused with rich period detail and an aura of foreboding. --Allison Block Copyright 2004 Booklist