Yet more Tudor reading: "Dissolution" by C.J. Sansom

I have no recollection of buying this book, though I can imagine I might have done. Did someone give it to me? A thousand apologies if that was the case and the person who did so is reading this... (However, as you will see, it was appreciated!)

This is indeed yet more Tudor reading, in the footsteps of the Hilary Mantel's stunning Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, and the contrasting non-fiction of Ian Mortimer and Peter Ackroyd, but in a different mode, for this is one from the "Crime Fiction (Historical)" department. This is certainly not to say that the author does not know what he's talking about, historically speaking, but that you would classify this as a high-class whodunnit à la Colin Dexter or P.D. James, rather as literary fiction in the Mantel mode. The publisher's blurb tells us as much, citing admiring comments from precisely those two crime luminaries. 

Something else I did not know about this book, but realised upon encountering one of those annoying sample-first-chapters-of-the-next-in-the-series at its end, is that, in true crime-fiction form, it is the first to feature a central detective character whose adventures span other novels. Our hero is Matthew Shardlake, a hunchbacked lawyer and (in this episode) special commissioner appointed by Thomas Cromwell (far less sympathetically portrayed than by Hilary Mantel) to investigate a murder in a south coast monastery. What ensues is a classic closed-system investigation, with Shardlake and his side-kick, operating in the hostile environment of a snow-bound monastery where not only murder, but also dissolution is in the air. 


The historical dimension is undoubtedly what gives this novel the extra gear which distinguishes it from a run of the mill whodunnit. Sansom knows his history well (read an illuminating interview with the author here) and writes a story which is as much about the process of the Tudor reformation - and its brutal politics - as being a murder mystery. This is not only an achievement in terms of research, but also one of evocation: one feels the oppressive paranoia of the age as the story unfolds. One can feel the author's fascination with a period of incredible turbulence and flux, in which ordinary people were impotent victims of the power games of the ruling classes. 

All the same, reading this book is a plot-driven experience. Sansom is not a stylist of a literary writer at the level of a Mantel or an Ackroyd, and his use of language sometimes seems rather pro-forma crime-writerish, and secondary characterisations lacking in nuance. Some plot contrivances are, well, rather contrived, and he is not beyond the excessively fortuitous (albeit satisfying) tying up of loose ends. But it is a gripping, atmospheric tale all the same, a quick pleasurable read which had me at least eagerly turning the pages. All in all, good leisure fiction with some interesting insights into a fascinating age. 

Yep, I might just pick up another Matthew Shardwell novel before too long.