C. J. Sansom – Bickerstaff Booksellers

Revelation

Kim — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 21:54:22 +0000

Hailed as a “virtuoso performance” (The Denver Post) and “historical fiction writing at its best” (The Tampa Tribune), Revelation is a must-read for fans of Hilary Mantel, Margaret George, and Philippa Gregory.

Lamentation

Kim — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 21:54:21 +0000

“A triumph both as detective fiction and as a novel … superior to Hilary Mantel.”–The Independent Summer, 1546. King Henry VIII is slowly, painfully dying. His Protestant and Catholic councilors are engaged in a power struggle; whoever wins will control the government. The Catholic party focuses its attack on Henry’s sixth wife–and Matthew Shardlake’s old mentor–Queen Catherine Parr. The Queen has authored a confessional book, Lamentation of a Sinner, so radically Protestant that if it came to the King’s attention it could bring both her and her sympathizers crashing down. Although the secret book was kept hidden inside a locked chest in the Queen’s private chamber, it has inexplicably vanished. Shardlake’s investigations take him on a trail that begins among the backstreet printshops of London, but leads him and his trusty assistant Jack Barak into the dark and labyrinthine world of court politics, a world Shardlake swore never to enter again.

Dissolution

Kim — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 21:54:20 +0000

Awarded the CWA Diamond Dagger, the highest honor in British crime writing. From the bestselling author of Winter in Madrid and Dominion comes the exciting and elegantly written first novel in the Matthew Shardlake Tudor Mystery series. Dissolution is an utterly riveting portrayal of Tudor England. The year is 1537, and the country is divided between those faithful to the Catholic Church and those loyal to the king and the newly established Church of England. When a royal commissioner is brutally murdered in a monastery on the south coast of England, Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s feared vicar general, summons fellow reformer Matthew Shardlake to lead the inquiry. Shardlake and his young protege uncover evidence of sexual misconduct, embezzlement, and treason, and when two other murders are revealed, they must move quickly to prevent the killer from striking again. A “remarkable debut” (P. D. James), Dissolution introduces a thrilling historical series that is not to be missed by fans of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies.

Dark Fire

Kim — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 21:54:19 +0000

Awarded the CWA Diamond Dagger, the highest honor in British crime writing. From the bestselling author of Winter in Madrid and Dominion comes a second riveting sixteenth-century thriller featuring hunchback lawyer Matthew Shardlake. In 1540, during the reign of Henry VIII, Shardlake is asked to help a young girl accused of murder. She refuses to speak in her defense even when threatened with torture. But just when the case seems lost, Thomas Cromwell, the king’s feared vicar general, offers Shardlake two more weeks to prove his client’s innocence. In exchange, Shardlake must find a lost cache of “Dark Fire,” a legendary weapon of mass destruction. What ensues is a page-turning adventure, filled with period detail and history.” Atmospheric and engaging” (Margaret George), this second book in Matthew Shardlake Tudor Mystery series delves again into the dark and superstitious world of Cromwell’s England introduced in Dissolution.

Tombland

Kim — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 21:54:06 +0000

One of the great overlooked historical detective series continues with this mystery for fans of Hilary Mantel, set in a time of great political upheaval in Tudor-era England. Spring, 1549. Two years after the death of Henry VIII, England is sliding into chaos. The nominal king, Edward VI, is 11 years old. His uncle, Edward Seymour, Lord Hertford, rules as Edward’s regent and Protector. In the kingdom, radical Protestants are driving the old religion into extinction, while the Protector’s prolonged war with Scotland has led to hyperinflation and economic collapse. Rebellion is stirring among the peasantry. Matthew Shardlake has been working as a lawyer in the service of Henry’s younger daughter, the lady Elizabeth. The gruesome murder of one of Elizabeth’s distant relations, rumored to be politically murdered, draws Shardlake and his companion Nicholas to the lady’s summer estate, where a second murder is committed. As the kingdom explodes into rebellion, Nicholas is imprisoned for his loyalty, and Shardlake must decide where his loyalties lie – with his kingdom, or with his lady?