Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com

Average Customer Rating:

Great book	Customer Rating:
I really enjoyed this book, and have subsequently enjoyed everything else I have read by this author. This book has it all for me, murder, political intrigue, religious zeal, romance and Tudor England. He captures the feel of the time very well, the historical detail is excellent. It comes as no surprise to find he is a historian! I highly recommend this book.

This book is a must!!!!!!	Customer Rating:
If you have any interest in medieval England, then this book is a must. Sansom interweves fictional and non fictional characters into a fictional and non fictional story line. I'm not going to give a brief explanation of the book's story line, that you can find anywhere on Amazon. Most, if not all of them, highly recommend this book. Just read the book and enjoy!!!!!

Too long by far

Customer Rating:

Don't get me wrong; this is a great read. The atmosphere created by the author really makes you feel as though you're stuck in a Tudor monastery in the middle of a blizzard yourself....and you feel as though you need to continue with the book because of this. Sadly I feel that it's over long and drawn out. 420 pages could have been trimmed down easily without losing any of the main plot. One other thing....I found it difficult to follow the plot when all of the main suspects are called Brother something.

Great Murder Mystery set in tudor times

Customer Rating:

I absolutely loved this book. I was so sad when it finished! The characters come to life effortlessly, and you really do sympathise with Shardlake. He is a lovely character and you're rooting for him all the way through. Although a lot of the book is set inside the monastery, the scenes bring to life how hard life must have been for people and you get sucked into the day to day struggles of the characters. I recommend this to anyone who loves good, gritty, intelligent historic fiction. I am already half way through Dark Fire and it's not disappointing!

Monks and mayhem on the south coast....

Customer Rating:

Plenty of people have compared this book to Eco's Name of the Rose, which is a little unfair (rather in the way every single fantasy book is somehow related back to JRRTolkien)as that sets some pretty big boots to fill! The parallells are sometimes very strong- no spoilers- but this is a very different book, and for me lacks the intensity, originality and dazzling plot of the former. But enough about Eco! This is a well written and capable story, the characters are simply sketched and develop with the plot. Everything is carefully set up and Sansom is someone who knows his stuff. It reads just like what its meant to be: a report by a careful and officious clerk, though I think it looses dramatic potential for it at times. The ending is rather too neat and predictable, and I find the lead characters agnosticism and postmodernism rather garishly anachronistic. It ticks all the boxes, but won't upset any apple-carts. Perfect for a winters reading by ther fire.....