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The Shardlake Series

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In honor of novelist C.J. Sansom’s passing, I wanted to recommend his marvelous Matthew Shardlake historical crime thrillers, for anyone who isn’t already familiar. I definitely learned and remembered more about Thomas Cromwell-era England from Dissolution than I did from any textbooks (not that I’ve read any of those in a while, but still). It was all very visceral in a damp-stone-monastery, heavy cloaks, burning candles, teeth-being-pulled-in-the-Tower-of-London kind of way. Also his novels are just super fun, and the Matthew Shardlake character — a sort of proto-detective lawyer — is especially memorable.

Discussion  4 comments

Rachel Smith

I adore these books and Shardlake as a character. There is now a 4-part Hulu show called Shardlake that I hope is good!

Jeffrey W

Any idea where I can get these books, I checked online and could only find $29 paperback and my library system/network doesn't have it?!?!

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Jeffrey W

Awesome, thank you!

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