Awards

• Short-listed for CWA Historical Dagger 2008 (UK)
• Short-listed for National Book Awards Crime Book of the Year 2009 (UK)

Overview

'C. J. Sansom's books are arguably the best Tudor novels going' - The Sunday Times Revelation is the haunting fourth book in C. J. Sansom's bestselling Shardlake series, perfect for fans of Hilary Mantel and Philippa Gregory. England, 1543. King Henry VIII is wooing Catherine Parr, whom he wants for his sixth wife. Archbishop Thomas Cranmer and the embattled Protestant faction at court are watching keenly, for Lady Catherine is known to have reformist sympathies. Matthew Shardlake, meanwhile, is working on the case of a teenage zealot detained in the Bedlam insane asylum, and whom he fears could be burned as a heretic. But when an old friend is horrifically murdered, Shardlake determines to bring the killer to justice. His search leads him to Cranmer and Catherine Parr - and to the dark prophecies of the Book of Revelation. As London's Bishop Bonner prepares a purge of Protestants, Shardlake, together with his assistant Jack Barak and physician friend Guy Malton, uncovers a series of terrible murders which soon bring talk of sorcery and demonic possession - for what else would the Tudor mind make of a serial killer . . . ? This is the fourth novel in C. J. Sansom's thrilling historical series. Continue the series with Heartstone.

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9781035012404

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Reviews

Sansom's meticulous attention to historical detail and vivid characters make this Tudor mystery as gripping and vital as any modern thriller * The Times * A serial killer is using the Book of Revelation for his murders in this outstanding whodunnit featuring the bestselling Tudor lawyer Matthew Shardlake * The Sunday Times Culture - Your 100 Best Holiday Reads * Sansom's evocation of sixteenth-century London amidst the turmoil of the Reformation is compelling -- Helen Zaltzman * The Observer * Sansom's deeply resonant novel depicts Tudor London as a benighted city overrun by fundamentalist fanatics, heretic-burners and the madness of crowds, while his narrative's tingling intrigues will have you hooked from first page to last -- Trevor Lewis * The Sunday Times * Only the wonderfully rich detail with which the author brings to life characters and settings lets us know that we are not in modern times, but in 1543 - and even this evocation of a filthy overcrowded London thronged with beggars and prostitutes seems uncomfortably close to present day reality . . . Mingling lightly worn erudition with pacy plotting, this is an utterly compelling read -- Christina Koning * The Times * Historical mysteries are all the rage, but Sansom's are in a class of their own. His sheer narrative skill is matchless -- Simon Shaw * The Mail on Sunday * C. J. Sansom's novels, set amid the stench and scandal of the sixteenth century, are impressive both for their intricate detail and serpentine plot twists -- <i>Independent</i>'s 'Books of the Year' Terror stalks Tudor London in this latest pungently atmospheric novel from the master of the historical murder mystery * The Sunday Times Culture * He has created a hugely detailed and wonderfully plausible picture of life in sixteenth-century London as religious schisms threaten to tear the country apart but he sweetens the pot in this tale of a Tudor serial killer by having his characters talking in modern English. A very superior entertainment * The Mail on Sunday * There's expert historical crime to be found in . . . C. J. Sansom's Revelation, perhaps the first Tudor serial-killer mystery, which also illuminates sixteenth-century attitudes to madness and fundamentalism * The Guardian - What to pack with your beach towel * I've just returned from a week in the sun when the pick of my holiday reads was C. J. Sansom's marvellous Dark Fire. It's a thrilling quest novel set in Tudor London and the second in Sansom's historical series starring the hunchback lawyer Matthew Shardlake. If, as I've been told, the next two books (Sovereign and Revelation) are even better I have further treats in store -- Jessie Childs * Independent on Sunday summer reads * The outstanding new whodunnit featuring Tudor lawyer Matthew Shardlake * Sunday Times 100 Best Holiday Reads * Compulsively gripping Tudor murder mysteries . . . As a plot with a clutch of steel pulls you through dramatic twists and turns and vivid, knowledgeable, widely diverse scenes of Tudor life, you watch Shardlake discern a terrible pattern in the butchery -- Peter Kemp * The Sunday Times Culture * The fourth in C. J. Sansom's superb Tudor detective series . . . As with the previous books, Samson's narrative is highly visual and Revelation will clearly make a white-knuckle film . . . don't expect to put the book down until you've seen it through to the apocalyptic finale * The Observer * The twists and turns of Sansom's novel are steeped in history, but feel as fresh and immediate as a present-day murder mystery -- Daneet Steffens * Time Out * This ambitious panorama of a book, the fourth in Sansom's series set in not-so-merrie Tudor England, more than lives up to the promise of the previous three . . . With wonderful scene-setting . . . plus some deft plotting, Revelation is an absorbing and thought-provoking window on the Tudor world -- Laura Wilson * The Guardian * Sansom's powerful and seductive historicism militates against the particular and the personal, or, indeed, the naturalistic. His vivid Tudor London is larger than life, just as we fondly imagine it to be: dangerous, dirty, noisy, picturesque and, above all, different * The Times Literary Supplement * The fourth in a series of historical thrillers that are to Ellis Peters what P. D. James is to Agatha Christie. It works as a stand-alone novel, but aficionados will feel they are rejoining a party, catching up with old friends * The Times * C. J. Sansom's books are arguably the best Tudor novels going * The Sunday Times *

Author Information

C. J. Sansom was educated at Birmingham University, where he took a BA and then a PhD in history. After working in a variety of jobs, he retrained as a solicitor and practised in Sussex, until becoming a full-time writer. Sansom is the bestselling author of the acclaimed Shardlake series, the Spanish Civil War thriller Winter in Madrid and the lauded alternative history novel Dominion. He lives in Sussex.

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