More murders will follow their arrival and it's clear that Shardlake and his young assistant are also in grave danger every moment that they remain in the monastery. Shardlake must also come to terms with the means by which Singleton was killed, decapitation by sword, and stifle the memories of seeing young Anne Boleyn executed not long before in that manner. The good news is that the mystery is more than entertaining enough to keep the pages turning and to allow Sansom a setting in which he can embellish his story line with a wealth of historic details, atmosphere and character development that I personally found much more entertaining than the story itself. When Cromwell’s commissioner to Scarnsea Robert Singleton is brutally murdered, Shardlake charged with finding the murderer heads there with his assistant Mark Poer, only to find that things are very very murky in the monastery though on the surface, everything seems fine. Dissolution is a book that perfectly captures the atmosphere and instability of England during the time Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic Church, creating not just religious uncertainty but also Political instability, but at the centre of this book is a murder mystery with all the intrigue and thrill from a great crime/ thriller.

En este ambiente de miedo y corrupción desatada, uno de los enviados de Cromwell, es asesinado en uno de los monasterios benedictinos a los que ha sido enviado para convencer, forzar o hacer lo que hiciera falta, para conseguir la cesión del monasterio a la corona.His master, Cromwell, is a sinister figure, mercurial and rather frightening, prepared to do whatever is necessary to see the King's (and his own) will done. Was Matthew Shardlake a truly naïve character, or was he simply in a deep state of denial with regard to Thomas Cromwell’s style of governing?

Never mind the fact that they are trampling over evidence, leaving their own hairs and jumping to ridiculous conclusions based upon preliminary testing. Brother Gabriel, who is responsible for the music and aesthetics of the church, is morally upright—unless in the company of attractive young men.In the winter, Scarnsea is a hard place to break into, but the monks and monastery staff would like to think the murderer came from outside.

L'avvocato Matthew Shardlake diventerà un amico, lo conosci, soffri con lui, senti le sue paure in un periodo storico dove la giustizia non regna supremo, la medicina come la conosciamo noi non esiste … consiglio la lettura partendo dal primo libro - L'Enigma del Gallo Nero poi La scomparsa del Fuoco Greco e poi gli altri 5. J. Sansom’s Shardlake books, which are set amid the uncertainties of the 16th-century Henrician Reformation. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.I have not read many but the few I have read, I liked how the detectives has to depend on their instincts and hunches and someone was always on their heels to murder them. To make matters worse the infirmity he was born with, a hunchback, continues to give him more and more trouble with each passing day. At the monastery of Scarnsea, events have spiralled out of control with the murder of Commissioner Robin Singleton.