Sovereign is the third Matthew Shardlake mystery. It’s set in England in 1541. Henry VIII is on the throne and busy chopping people’s heads off. He decides to take a journey to York to pacify the rebellious locals. Shardlake, a lawyer, is recruited by Archbishop Cranmer to settle some petitions in York and to interview one of the captured York conspirators, Sir Edward Broderick. C. J. Sansom’s meticulous historical detail renders the majesty and the misery of a Royal visit. A murder is committed and Shardlake is drawn into the investigation. As Shardlake learns more about the conspiracy, he is attacked and nearly killed. Then three more attempts are made on his life. Not only is the plot suspenseful, the tension of the mystery is heightened by the historical context. If you enjoy historical mysteries, Sovereign should go to the top of your list. GRADE: A
George-I sent you a long email but your server turned it away as spam. Basically it said, you should be on Crimespot; Rachel Getting Married was one of the best movies of last year; Detroit may be too incompetent to get the money coming; I will listen to the podcast. I said it a lot more leisurely in the email and I also said thanks for the friday books. Patti
Servers at my College are extremely picky. Many of my students send me email that the servers reject as spam. Sorry you ran into that. You’ll like the Richard Florida interview. He was very hopeful about “rust belt” cities like Detroit and Buffalo.