C.J. Sansom, Shardlake, and
So this week, in between reading adverts for primary teaching jobs, and actually beginning to apply for some, I’ve been able to take the time to read the latest in C.J.Sansom’s Shardlake series of novels, Heartstone. Now I have to confess to being a bit of a detective novel fan. And I’m also a big big fan of historical novels (in fact I need to post soon about Hilary Mantell’s absolutely freakin’awesome Wolf Hall, which I finished a couple of weeks back). And as a Shakespearean scholar I’m particularly interested in English 16th century history. So when C J Sansom came out with the first in the Shardlake series, Revelation, a few years back, I was quite likely to be hooked.
Of course as all avid readers know, so often it’s the books that most excite you that leave you the most disappointed. So it was a relief to read the first in this series and find that it was brilliant - a sort of slightly less postmodern The Name of the Rose (which is another brilliant book set around the same period). And then a joy to see the series progress and the books get arguably better as they go along. Shardlake is a beautifully drawn character - a hunchbacked lawyer often shunned by his peers and looked down on by those in power due his advocacy for the underclass, a decent man in a morally compromised age who’s just trying to get through the day.
If you haven’t experience the Shardlake phenomenon yet, check Sansom’s books out. You won’t be disappointed.
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