Sovereign, by CJ Sansom. Book review

Pan, 2007. ISBN 978-0-330-43608-3. 653 pages

This historical mystery is the third in the Shardlake series, following on from Dissolution (review) and Dark Fire (review). Sovereign is set in York and London in September-November 1541, with an epilogue in February 1542. King Henry VIII, Queen Catherine Howard, Lady Jane Rochford and Archbishop Cranmer are important secondary characters. All the main characters are fictional.

After the horrors recounted in Dark Fire, lawyer Matthew Shardlake has built up a modestly prosperous property law practice in London, with Jack Barak (formerly one of Thomas Cromwell’s henchmen) employed as his clerk. When Shardlake accepts a seemingly straightforward task from Archbishop Cranmer, he finds out too late that it also involves a political mission, escorting an important prisoner from York to London. Arriving in York, Shardlake and Barak find the city and region seething with resentment and hostility to the King. The destruction of the monasteries and the sale of their vast land holdings to absentee landlords, mainly in London, has not only wrecked the regional economy as the new landlords siphon the rents south, but also removed the safety net for those left destitute. Only a few months earlier a conspiracy against the King was discovered, throwing the London government into a panic and provoking King Henry to undertake a huge armed progress through the north of England. Shardlake’s prisoner was part of this conspiracy, and is to face torture in the Tower of London to force him to betray his associates. Shardlake, a humane man, is distressed by his mission and by the obvious injustice of the treatment of the North. And then a murder and a chance encounter bring Shardlake and Barak into possession of not one but two secrets perilously close to the throne. As events unfold, Shardlake uncovers a secret that threatens to plunge England into chaos and civil war – and he has powerful enemies at court who have a terrifying fate in store for him...

This third instalment in the Shardlake series is even darker than the first two. Corruption and cruelty are pervasive, and Shardlake finds out – personally, in one of the most harrowing sequences in the book – that honesty and justice do not necessarily provide any protection. His disillusion with both religion and royalty, developing through the first two novels as he witnessed abuses of power, is now complete. Shardlake is a decent man living in evil times, when integrity and a strong moral sense can carry a very high price. Several years ago when I reviewed Dissolution, I said ‘I will be interested to see how (if?) Shardlake and his principles manage to navigate the rest of Henry’s increasingly tyrannical reign’. In Sovereign, this is thrown into sharp relief.

The plot is suitably complex, with multiple strands that cut across one another. Some are connected and some are purely coincidental, providing ample scope for red herrings and false leads to keep the reader guessing. Whether the ancient rumours on which the main plot turns would really have been enough to threaten Henry VIII is hard to say. On the one hand, the dearth of alternative candidates – the nearest direct heir was a Cardinal in Rome – would surely have given pragmatists pause. On the other, Henry had made a great many enemies as a result of his marital antics, religious power-grab and increasingly tyrannical rule, and at least two serious rebellions had already been attempted (the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536 and the conspiracy in 1541). Given Henry’s caprice and paranoia, it is entirely plausible that such rumours could have been extremely dangerous to those who happened upon them (regardless of whether there was actually a credible threat to Henry himself).

I was pleased to see Jack Barak back again, after his introduction in Dark Fire. This time he has a challenge of his own, a sparky young woman who works as a confectioner and seamstress for one of Queen Catherine’s ladies. It will be interesting to see if Barak is luckier in love than Shardlake has been so far – though I have to say I can’t really imagine Barak as a steady family man.

Like the previous two, the novel is very long and the pace is stately, even slow. This partly reflects Shardlake’s methodical nature; he seems to observe even attempts on his life in meticulous detail. The slow pace and the length allows plenty of space for historical detail about life at various levels of society under Henry’s rule.

A helpful historical note at the end outlines the background to the Progress, the northern rebellions and the rumours about the Tudor family tree, and there is a bibliography of selected further reading. A map at the front showing the layout of York in 1541 is helpful to follow the scenes in the city, and another map outlines the route of the Progress and Shardlake’s voyage from York to London for readers unfamiliar with English geography.

Dark historical mystery set against the cruelty and corruption of England during the later years of Henry VIII’s reign.

A Murder of Crows, by PF Chisholm. Book review

Poisoned Pen Press, 2010. ISBN 978-1-59058-737-9. 253 pages.

This historical mystery is set in London in 1592. Sir Robert Carey, his father Lord Hunsdon (cousin of Queen Elizabeth I through his mother Mary Boleyn), his father Lady Hunsdon, Robert Cecil, Vice Chamberlain Heneage, Will Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe are all historical figures and major characters. The central character, Land-Sergeant Henry Dodd of Gilsland on the Anglo-Scottish border, is fictional.

Tough Borderer Henry Dodd wants vengeance on Vice Chamberlain Heneage for the injuries he sustained in an earlier adventure. He has reluctantly been persuaded that the way such matters are handled in the strange foreign world of London is by suing Heneage in the law courts, rather than by the traditional Border method of burning Heneage’s property and stealing his livestock. Dodd has little faith in this peculiar southern system but is prepared to give it a try. However, no lawyer in London is willing to accept the commission, even for the handsome fee offered by Lord Hunsdon – until a young Cornish lawyer offers to take the case with suspicious eagerness. Meanwhile, Lord Hunsdon wants Carey and Dodd to solve the mystery of an  unknown corpse with no feet that has washed up on the Palace steps. And to complicate matters further, Carey’s formidable mother Lady Hunsdon arrives unexpectedly in London with business of her own that will get Dodd and Carey into still more trouble.

PF Chisholm is a pen name of Patricia Finney, who has written several novels set in Elizabethan England. A Murder of Crows is the fifth in a series of historical mysteries starring Sir Robert Carey and Henry Dodd. I didn’t know that when I picked this up, and haven’t read any of the others. This one seemed to work perfectly well as a stand-alone, although there were probably references to the previous books that I missed.

The vigorous, chaotic and ruthless world of Elizabethan London is brilliantly realised in this entertaining mystery. The glittering snake-pit of the court sits cheek-by-jowl with the criminal underworld, and which has the more cheats, liars, thieves and murderers is anyone’s guess.

The plot is complicated, with several intertwining sub-plots involving political rivalry, financial scams, secret codes, murder, torture and mistaken identity. Both playwrights, Shakespeare and Marlowe, are engaged in various degrees of shady espionage work for patrons unknown, the young Cornish lawyer James Enys is not what he seems, and both Lord and Lady Hunsdon have something to hide. I soon gave up trying to work out who was double-crossing whom, and just went along for the highly enjoyable ride as the dour and very practical Sergeant Dodd works out the solution and brings matters to a satisfactory conclusion.

Although it is billed as ‘A Sir Robert Carey Mystery’, Robert Carey himself is rather a secondary character, and events are almost all seen through the eyes of Henry Dodd. This adds a wonderfully surreal note of comedy to the mayhem, as Dodd views London, with its commerce and courtly shenanigans, through the prism of Border reiver ways – which prove more applicable than one might imagine. Dodd’s speculations about the practicalities of staging a reiving raid on London form a running joke throughout the novel. He has a healthy lack of respect for some of the fripperies of London life, such as the uncomfortable clothes and self-important courtiers, but is developing a reluctant taste for some of its luxuries, like tobacco and a ready supply of apples (which are rare on the Borders, owing to the reivers’ habit of destroying orchards along with everything else). Dodd’s wry humour and down-to-earth attitude make him a splendid guide to Elizabethan London. Other than Dodd, the most memorable character is Lady Hunsdon, here imagined in the entertaining if somewhat unlikely guise of a lady privateer – a sort of Cornish Grace O’Malley commanding a tough crew of pirates. I have to say I didn’t find this terribly convincing, but it was great fun.

A Murder of Crows is full of historical detail, usually either worked into the plot (e.g. paper is extremely expensive, which leads Dodd to an important clue) or to develop character, such as Dodd’s musings on the contrasts between life in London and life on the Borders. Period terminology and slang adds atmosphere. There is a glossary of period terms at the back for readers who are unfamiliar with them. I worked most of them out from context, which is just as well as I didn’t find the glossary until I finished the book. Regional accents indicate the various characters’ origins and social position, with Cockney, Cumbrian and Cornish alongside formal court English.

Entertaining murder mystery set in Elizabethan London against the murky backdrop of court factions and dubious financial dealings.

The House At Old Vine, by Norah Lofts. Book review

First published 1961. Edition reviewed: The History Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-7524-4868-8. 349 pages.

The House at Old Vine is set in 1496-1680, mainly in and around the fictional town of Baildon in Suffolk. Some historical events and figures appear in the background, such as the English Civil War. All the main characters are fictional.

The House at Old Vine follows on from The Town House (reviewed here earlier), and continues the tale of Martin Reed’s descendants and the other inhabitants of the house he built. Maude Reed, Martin’s grand-daughter, appears in The Town House and also in The House at Old Vine, and links the two novels.  Like its predecessor, The House at Old Vine consists of several separate but interlinked tales, each recounted by a different narrator.  Usually the narrators are a generation or two apart.  This gives the book more of the feel of a collection of linked short stories than a conventional novel.  The unusual structure works well, partly because the house itself is the main source of continuity.  The people come and go, some remembered by the generations who follow them and some forgotten, while the house endures through the centuries.  The structure also has the effect of showing some characters from different points of view, thus throwing new light on their actions and behaviour.

As in The Town House, The House at Old Vine conveys an authentic sense of how it might have been to live and work in a provincial English town during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Most of the narrators are middle class, as they belong to a family that owns not only a substantial house but also a business based there, whether it is cloth manufacturing, a hostelry or a kindly but down-at-heel boarding school.  Sometimes the perspective is from lower down the social scale, as with Josiana’s description of the unrelenting toil of the medieval peasant’s life, or outside it altogether, as in Ethelreda’s vivid account of her childhood in the Fens before the traditional way of life was extinguished by landowners’ drainage schemes. The great events of politics and war happen in the background, and profoundly shape the lives and choices available to the characters.  From the religious conflicts of the sixteenth century, when “…the beliefs for which Walter Rancon had died were now compulsory”, to the spies and plots of the Civil War, the inhabitants of the house experience and respond to the events of their times as well as to their personal concerns. Social changes shape the different generations of narrators too, as wool manufacture gives way to silk with changes in trade and fashion, or the demise of the monasteries leaves an unfilled need for hostelries that can accommodate respectable travellers, or the expansion of the East India Company (forerunner of Empire) creates a demand for boarding schools where the children of expatriate officials can be brought up and educated, or as new forms of entertainment such as plays and concerts become widely popular.  The house too changes with the times, evolving from private house to manufacturing enterprise to hotel to boarding school and back again.

Characterisation is lively and convincing.  All the narrators and many of the secondary characters are individuals with their own foibles and motivations, mostly neither good nor bad but something in between.  There seems to be a strange psychopathic trait that crops out occasionally in the descendants of Martin Reed – readers of The Town House will recognise its supposed origin – described by the perceptive Maude Reed as “The charm and the heartlessness […] Something not – not quite human, something wild and unaccountable”. For the most part the narrators are not the people with this characteristic, but the ones trying to deal with its consequences. 

There is no historical note or map, perhaps reflecting the original publication date (1961), or perhaps because all the main characters, places and events are fictional.

Sequel to The Town House, taking the story of Martin Reed’s house and his descendants into the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Dark Fire, by CJ Sansom. Book review.

Pan, 2007. ISBN 978-0-330-45078-2. 576 pages.

Set in London in the summer of 1540, Dark Fire is the second in the historical mystery series that began with Dissolution (reviewed here earlier). Historical figures Thomas Cromwell, the Duke of Norfolk and Richard Rich appear as secondary characters. All the main characters are fictional.

Matthew Shardlake has been practising quietly as a property lawyer in London for three years, since he investigated a series of murders at Scarnsea monastery for Cromwell (recounted in Dissolution).  The terrible events of that time cooled Shardlake’s ardour for religious reform, and he has no desire for any further involvement in high politics or religion; indeed, he is entertaining vague dreams about a peaceful country retirement. Against his better judgement, he is persuaded to take up a seemingly hopeless criminal case, defending the young niece of an old friend against a charge of brutal murder.  The girl refuses to plead, and Shardlake has no hope of saving her – until Cromwell intervenes with a stay of execution.  But Cromwell’s intervention has a price. He wants Shardlake to obtain the secret of Greek Fire, apparently recently rediscovered in the library of a dissolved monastery by a legal official and his alchemist brother.  Cromwell has promised a demonstration to the king. But when Shardlake arrives at their house, he finds the brothers brutally murdered and all their papers stolen.  Now Shardlake has to recover the secret from the murderers, and he has only twelve days to do it – if he can stay alive himself.

Dark Fire lives up to the high standard set by Dissolution. The search for Greek Fire is an ingenious mystery plot with plenty of twists and turns, false leads and dead ends, with a fair share of violent action. At the same time Shardlake is also trying to solve the mastery surrounding his friend’s niece and prove her innocent, and the two investigations intertwine, adding further complexity.

Like its predecessor, Dark Fire has a strong feeling of authenticity, conjuring up the fears and uncertainties raised by religious conflict, the sudden and ruthless destruction of the monasteries (and the consequent loss of the medical and social security services they provided, for all their faults), the rise of a money-grubbing clique obsessed with getting rich quick at everyone else’s expense, and the increasingly tyrannical rule of the ageing Henry VIII.  The squalor of Tudor London is well captured, from a rich noblewoman having to remind her lady-in-waiting not to trail her hand in the Thames during a boat trip because of the floating turds, to the gimcrack slums made of once-fine religious buildings by greedy landlords.

The most attractive feature of the novel for me was the character of Shardlake. Amidst this corrupt and semi-lawless world, Shardlake stands out as a humane and honest individual, prepared to use his legal training to stand up for the weak against the powerful to see justice done – insofar as there is justice to be had in a world where judges can be routinely bribed and the powerful do not hesitate to stoop to intimidation and murder.  Shardlake is a fully rounded character, with his fair share of flaws and foibles. He is sensitive about his hunchback, so much so that it becomes almost a form of vanity, and his humanity has blind spots that result in unintentional mistreatment of others.

I was pleased to see that Guy, an ex-monk from Scarnsea who appeared in Dissolution, makes a return in Dark Fire, now practising as a secular apothecary in London. Shardlake’s new assistant is another well-drawn character, a tough young bruiser called Jack Barak, working for Cromwell on various dodgy missions and temporarily seconded to Shardlake for the Greek Fire case.  Cocky and insolent on the surface, he is gradually revealed in more depth, and his painful history gives him insights that escape Shardlake. The ending suggests that the pairing may continue into further adventures, and it will be interesting to see how the two characters develop.

At well over 500 pages, the novel is very long, and in places I felt the pace slowed almost to a crawl, despite the constant reminders of the twelve-day deadline ticking down. This may be partly because I know a little about the history, so there was no suspense in the political subplot for me.  On the other hand, the length gives plenty of space for lots of historical detail about prisons, legal practice, living conditions, social customs and the economic and social consequences following on from the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

A helpful Historical Note outlines the political and religious background to the novel, and notes the fictional parts of the plot.  There is a useful map of London at the front, which helps in following the characters as they move around the city.

Ingenious mystery with an strong sense of time and place, set against the murderous political and religious conflicts of Henry VIII’s London.