A six book week this time. My pick of the week is C.J. Sansom's Dark Fire.
Hunchback attorney Matthew Shardlake practices property law in king Henry the Eighth's England. He's coerced into searching for the formula for Greek Fire in order for Thomas Cromwell to get back into Henry's good graces.
The tale twists and turns through the medieval streets of London and the treacheries of the recently divided church and country. Shardlake is a medieval version of Sherlock Holmes' axiom of rational thought and thorough observation.
This historical novel radiates a sense of the ramshackle vibrancy and filthy survival of London in the 1500s, and delivers two mysteries and the obligatory near-death escape with aplomb.
If this appeals, try the first Matthew Shardlake novel, Dissolution also.
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