Tombland

A Shardlake Novel

By: C. J. Sansom

Narrated by: Steven Crossley

Length: 37 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's summary

From C.J. Sansom, the highly anticipated new novel in his acclaimed Shardlake series of Tudor mysteries, which have sold two million copies around the world.

Spring, 1549. Two years after the death of Henry VIII, England is sliding into chaos...

The king, Edward VI, is 11 years old. His uncle Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, rules as Protector. Radical Protestants are conducting all-out war on the old religion, stirring discontent among the people. The Protector's prolonged war with Scotland is proving a disastrous failure. Worst of all, the economy is in collapse, inflation rages, and rebellion is stirring among the peasantry.

Since the old King's death, Matthew Shardlake has been working as a lawyer in the service of Henry's younger daughter, the Lady Elizabeth. The gruesome murder of the wife of John Boleyn, a distant Norfolk relation of Elizabeth's mother - which could have political implications for Elizabeth - brings Shardlake and his young assistant Nicholas Overton to the summer assizes at Norwich. There they are reunited with Shardlake's former assistant Jack Barak. The three find layers of mystery and danger surrounding the death of Edith Boleyn, as more murders are committed.

During their investigation, a peasant rebellion breaks out across the country. Yeoman Robert Kett establishes a vast camp outside Norwich and leads a force of thousands to overthow the landlords. Soon the rebels have taken over the city, England's second largest.

Barak throws in his lot with the rebels; Nicholas, opposed to them, becomes a prisoner in Norwich Castle; while Shardlake has to decide where his ultimate loyalties lie. As government forces in London prepare to march north and destroy the rebels, he discovers that the murder of Edith Boleyn may have connections reaching into both the heart of the rebel camp and of the Norfolk gentry...

Tombland is both a thrilling murder mystery and a vivid and engaging portrait of a divided nation.

©2019 C. J. Sansom (P)2019 Penguin Random House Canada

Critic reviews

Number One International Best Seller

Long-listed for The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction

Short-listed for The British Book Awards' Fiction Book of the Year

“Enthralling.... Sansom describes 16th-century events in the crisply realistic style of someone watching them transpire right outside his window.” (Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review)

“[A] novel/history book that should fascinate hundreds of thousands of readers.... Sansom is a remarkable storyteller, but his greatest gift is that he links all of his plots with real history - social, political, religious, and agricultural.... It’s intoxicating to be so transported to another era.” (Eastern Daily Press)

“Tudor England of 1549 is effortlessly evoked. The murder mystery absorbs, the characters are vivid, and the history is seductive, but it’s the author’s inclusive humanity that lingers." (Daily Mail)

“Mr. Sansom is, I should say, a late disciple of Walter Scott, who asked what the plot was for ‘but to bring in fine things’. Fine things are here abundantly, and the evocation of Tudor London is utterly convincing.... This sequence of novels is a fine example of the intelligent imagination playing on history.” (The Wall Street Journal)