Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“my life will change utterly since my sinful eyes saw this noble land so much admired.”

Tombland: A Matthew Shardlake Tudor Mystery by C.J. Sansom

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Never in England were there so many gentlemen and so little gentleness. After two years working for Elizabeth on legal land matters, Matthew Shardlake is summoned in front of her. Edith Boleyn, a wife of a distant relation has been recently murdered, and her husband, John Boleyn, is on trial for it. As Elizabeth is fiercely protective of any relation of hers due to being unable to save her mother (seriously, I get the feeling from this book that if Elizabeth thought it would have […]

“This, I thought, was how the real power-play went: conversations in corners and gardens, nods, shrugs, inclinations of the head. But nothing in writing.”

Lamentation: A Matthew Shardlake Tudor Mystery by C.J. Sansom

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It’s been a year since Heartstone, and Matthew Shardlake’s life is going reasonably well. He has a new steward, a new Law clerk, and Jack and Tamasin are soon to welcome their second child. True, he hasn’t seen Queen Katherine Parr in that time, the religious needle has swung slightly more to the “punishing Protestants” side meaning he’s going to have to burn some of his favorite books, and he has to represent Lincoln’s Court at the burning of Anne Askew for heresy, but that’s […]

“Politics is like dice: the better the player, the worse the man”

Heartstone: A Matthew Shardlake Tudor Mystery by C.J. Sansom

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It’s 1545 and Henry VII has gotten England into a war with France; seeing as it’s Tudor-Era England, war with France, Spain, Scotland, or England itself is not really that surprising. It looks like the French will land their invasion force at Portsmouth. Too bad that Portsmouth is around the area Matthew Shardlake is being sent by his patron, Queen Catherine Parr. A servant in Parr’s former household has come to the Queen for assistance; the servant’s son has allegedly killed himself after swearing out […]

“Have you ever thought what a God would be like who actually ordained and executed the cruelty that is in [the biblical Book of Revelation]? A holocaust of mankind. Yet so many of these Bible-men accept the idea without a second thought.”

Revelation by C.J. Sansom

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This was probably the weirdest (and creepiest) book in the series so far. The motivation behind the murders is unfortunately still around today, and I enjoyed the Tudor take on the movie Seven (though having never seen the movie, I am just guessing at that comparison). I also appreciated how well-researched the book is, and how realistically all the characters are written; though Shardlake and his “crush on a woman who is going to kick him in the teeth” per book is starting to get […]

“How easy it is to leave things undone until they are too late.”

Sovereign: A Matthew Shardlake Tudor Mystery by C.J. Sansom

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In my love affair for both Historical Murder Mysteries and series whose books get progressively more brick-like the longer they go on, I tackled Sovereign, the third in the Matthew Shardlake Tudor Mystery series. And I don’t really regret that I did. Set this time in York during the great Progress Henry VIII took after the near civil war of 1541, York truly comes alive, with the Minster and St. Mary’s Church shown particular love. Sansom paints a pretty good picture of how as much […]

“There is nothing under the moon, however fine, that is not subject to corruption.”

Dark Fire: A Matthew Shardlake Tudor Mystery by C.J. Sansom

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I am a huge fan of mystery novels, especially historical ones sent in Tudor England, so the Shardlake series was a a huge yes for me. Sansom delivers an incredibly well-written and well-researched England set during the reign of Henry VIII. This one, the second in the series, finds hunchback (yes, it’s important to the character) lawyer Matthew Shardlake trying to track down a barrel of Greek Fire promised to Henry by Shardlake’s patron Thomas Cromwell; a barrel that has apparently resulted in the deaths […]



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