Freelance Writing Jobs | Today's Articles | Sign In

Review of CJ Sansom's Dissolution

Murder in Tudor England During the Time of the Reformation

Aug 3, 2009 Elizabeth Gregory

The first novel in Sansom's phenomenally successful series sees Matthew Shardlake sent to investigate a brutal murder at a corrupt monastery.

The year is 1537, a violent and turbulent time for the people of England. The Reformation is well under way, with King Henry VIII proclaiming himself Supreme Head of the Church and leading England's separation from the Pope and the Catholic Church. Henry's second wife Anne Boleyn has just been publically beheaded on false charges of adultery, and the nation is living in a state of fear under brutal and confusing new laws.

Cromwell's Dissolution of the Monasteries

For England's monasteries, this sense of fear is all-pervading. Under the command of Lord Cromwell, a team of commissioners has been sent all around the country to investigate what goes on behind closed doors, uncovering a number of transgressions and forcibly closing and destroying many of the smaller monasteries. Yet a few of the larger communities still remain, and it is at one of these that one of Cromwell's commissioners has met the most violent of ends.

Thus Matthew Shardlake, a lawyer who has worked his way up to a position of favour with Lord Cromwell, is sent to the monastery at Scarnsea to investigate the truth behind the savage murder of Commissioner Robin Singleton, found lying in the monastery kitchen with his head hacked from his body. As a supporter of Reform, Shardlake is unwelcome at the monastery, where the monks are just as frightened of him as they are at the thought of a murderer in their midst - perhaps more so.

Matthew Shardlake

Over the course of the novel, Shardlake's enquiries lead him deeper into the murky history of the monastery and some of its residents, and further bloodshed complicates matters as more lives are taken. It is much to Sansom's credit that in an enclosed community, with only a limited number of suspects, he manages to keep the reader guessing at the identity of the killer until the very end.

Shardlake himself, initially an unsympathetic character, also undergoes great changes throughout the novel and emerges as one of the most remarkable literary creations in recent fiction. As a hunchback approaching forty years of age, he does not have the easiest of lives, and as he is forced to question all his beliefs during the events at Scarnsea the reader sees that under his stern exterior beats a kindly heart.

Sansom brings the world of Tudor England to life through the eyes of this complicated man; even those who are normally wary of historical fiction will find themselves gripped by this vivid murder hunt.

Dissolution by C J Sansom is published in the UK in paperback by Pan (2004), ISBN 978-0-330-45079-9.

The copyright of the article Review of CJ Sansom's Dissolution in British/UK Fiction is owned by Elizabeth Gregory. Permission to republish Review of CJ Sansom's Dissolution in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.