It was also interesting to see Jack Barak smitten with a woman because in Dark Fire he was such a rogue and womanizer. The family tree forms an integral part of the mystery so that is even more interesting. I really like books that have maps and family trees and this book has both. I've never been to York but thanks to the maps at the front of the book and Nu-Knees' apropos postcard of the streets of York I could really visualize the streets (gates as they are called in York) as I read this book. This series is going from strength to strength, and I will definitely be reading the rest of it. The danger that a wrong word or look to the wrong person in the wrong place, and someone might end up in the Tower of London however innocent they might be. Religion and politics inextricably linked.
Sansom also manages to get the paranoid atmosphere of Tudor England under the latter part of Henry VIII's reign: an increasingly tyrannical and unstable king with nearly absolute power. Shardlake and Barak make a good team, even though they don't always see eye to eye, and Sansom is obviously moving their story on: this is a good thing, as it's always vaguely unsatisfactory when the main characters' lives never change, despite what's happening around them. Pretty soon, it's clear that something is rotten in the county of Yorkshire (other than the King's ulcerated leg, and the bits of traitor still nailed up over the gates), and before the tale is done, there are murders, attempted murders, lies, betrayals, seductions, narrow escapes, and celebrity gossip. He has also been given the task of ensuring the health and welfare of an accused traitor, who is being brought back to London for "questioning". King Henry is intending to to prod some serious Yorkshire buttock, and Shardlake is along to help with the legal petitions. Matthew Shardlake and his trusty sidekick Jack Barak are off to York with the Royal Progress. It's taken me years to get around to reading this, and having finished, I'm left with one inescapable thought: Why did it take me so long?
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