Dissolution: A Matthew Shardlake Tudor Mystery

I bought this book based on the reviews posted here and if, in turn, my lowly opinion inspires someone else to indulge, then I'll be more than happy. What a fantastic read this was. The characters were so spot on believable. Not one came across as anything but three dimensional with complex dispositions and attitudes and perfectly flawed. The character of Matthew Shardlake is an inspired creation; a hunchback solicitor at the service of his Majesty King Henry VIII and Vicar General, Thomas Cromwell. Shardlake, along with his assistance Matthew Poer, at the behest of Cromwell is dispatched to an isolated monastery in the village of Scarnsea in the south of England to investigate the brutal murder of Commissioner Singleton sent to review the house's finances prior to the dissolution of the monasteries during the English reformation. Upon their arrival they are met with suspicion, apprehension and feigned cooperation by not only the Abbot and Prior but by all those in position in that insular world and for good reason: The monastery is nothing short of a seething pit of corruption, thievery, lies, sexual misconduct and, of course now, murder. However, it's only the beginning. Shortly upon their arrival at Scarnsea, a novice monk is murdered and the tale of a missing orphaned girl surfaces further complicating matters and casting suspicion upon almost everyone. Soon another murder slowly starts bringing down this fragile house of cards. This is first rate storytelling, with historical figures and facts and fictional characters and settings, expertly melded, creating a wholly believable premise that neither lags nor incites boredom. Sansom expertly brings the novel to a wonderful conclusion, never rushing to unmask the culprit but rather allowing the denouement to unfold with stunning ease and confidence. I certainly look forward to reading more of Sansom's novels featuring the intrepid hunchback. If you love historical fiction in general or Tudor England in particular you will find much to enjoy in this wonderful debut novel.

"You should have seen this house just five years ago, before the king's divorce. Everything ordered and secure. Prayer and devotion, the summer timetable then the winter, unchanging, centuries old. The Benedictines have given me such a life as I could never have had in the world; a ship's chandler's son raised to abbot." He gave a sad flicker of a smile. "It's not just myself I mourn for, Commissioner; it's the tradition, the life. Already these last two years order has started to break down. We all used to have the same beliefs, think the same way, but already the reforms have brought discord, disagreement. And now murder. Dissolution," he whispered. "Dissolution" It's 1537 and the king's divorce is, of course, Henry VIII's, which brought with it the disestablishment of the Catholic Church in England. Now, Henry and his vicar general, Thomas Cromwell, having survived the rebellion led by Robert Aske, are dissolving Church properties and adding their wealth to the royal treasury. But they require legal pretexts for doing so. When a royal commissioner is murdered while looking for such cause in the monastery of Scarnsea, Cromwell sends his fellow reformer Matthew Shardlake, "the sharpest hunchback in the courts of England," to investigate the killing and shut the place down. The book is kind of a Name of the Rose for the rest of us. The theological and political conflicts at its core are far more accessible to a modern reader and the questions it raises, like those in the paragraph above, still haunt. If the zealous Shardlake finds much of the corruption he expects to find in a Papist institution, he is also given cause to doubt the very Reformationist project he serves. Shardlake makes for a compelling hero, though his sidekick is annoying and is happily written out of what looks likely to be a series at novel's end. The atmosphere is tense and often quite frightening. The world of a 16th century monastery is convincingly rendered. And both the mystery and the theo-political drama are well-handled. Mr. Sansom seems like a writer to watch.

In 1537, having divorced his first wife and marrying a second, Henry VIII proceeded to close down the monasteries, which were a symbol of the power of the Catholic Church. This move was instrumental in the shaping of English society and politics during the 16th century. Although Henry had caused the Reformation in England to take place merely because he wanted an heir, he soon found that, like Martin Luther, there were problems with Catholicism- not the least of which was that the clergy were living much better than they ought to have. Their standard of living was so much higher than the average laypersons' that monks and their servants were living very long lives- sometimes into their eighties and nineties, uncommonly long for anyone to live in the 16th century. Dissolution refers to not only the process by which the monasteries were dissolved, but the process by which lives in England were irrevocably changed by the reformation. The dissolution of the monasteries left monks without a home, severed from the life most had known their entire lives. A commissioner working in the name of Thomas Cromwell goes to oversee the closing of the monastery at Scarnsea- and is mysteriously murdered, his head cleanly sliced off with a sword. Matthew Shardlake, hunchback lawyer at Chancery in London and deputy to Cromwell, is sent to investigate the murder. He believes that the murderer is someone within the monastic community. Before leaving London, however, Shardlake encounters someone selling parrots, those bird which repeat things that are told to them. They are not unlike the political situation in England: people repeat back what the king wants to hear. Anything that is "wrong," however, can be viewed as treasonous. Shardlake soon becomes involved in the various politics that shape up the monastery, and learns some very interesting pieces of information about the monks who live there. A young, attractive female servant, a homosexual, a stuttering monk, a converted Moor, and a mad Carthusian are some of the most interesting characters, all of which have a motive for murdering the commissioner. At the end of the day, however, three more people are dead, victims of an inevitable tragedy for the monastery. This is an excellent, well-written book. If you enjoyed this, also try Dark Fire, the second book featuring the adventures of Matthew Shardlake.

Very much looking forward to the next installment! This is a fun novel in its own right, but the author does a great job of creating an unusual, lovable hunchback detective who one feels has more work to do in 16th century England. The `Who Dunnit' tale is exciting. Despite many such stories being a little bit disappointing at the end, `Dissolution' is finely concluded and relatively satisfying. It reads like a film, especially when there is more action than storytelling near the end (which was disappointing), but the final pages more than make up for this pitfall! You get a great sense of monastic years in the cold English winter and characters such as Prior Mortimus, Brother Gabriel and Brother Edwig simply have to be investigated!

Since Ellis Peters' passing, I didn't expect to read any new good murder mysteries set in English monasteries. Thankfully, I was wrong, as I thoroughly enjoyed this work by a new author. This book takes place centuries after Brother Cadfael's time, when the British monasteries were falling into the corrupt lifestyle of the pre-Reformation Catholic Church. Of course, Henry VIII's dispute over his wished for divorce sped things along, and the new officials who arose in their master's wake were for Reform, and wished to close the monasteries, as symbols of the "papist" devils. Our intrepid hero goes to a large monastery on the coast to strong arm the abbott into surrendering his monastery to the crown, after his predecessor was murdered there. The plot deepens when two other murders occur, and our hero and his assistant must work diligently to discover "whodunnit", from a list of several likely suspects. There are religious discussions, traces of disillusionment in some of the characters, and all in all quite an exciting tale from beginning to end. I look forward quite eagerly to further books from this author.