Reviews

3.5 stars. This was a bit slower paced than the spectacular Dark Fire and at times the story felt like it was really meandering. I guessed the culprit fairly early on but still enjoyed the mystery, tension, and the detailed descriptions of England during the time of Henry Viii.

fellrnr's review against another edition

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informative slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

eleni12's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.25

ran_sophia's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

The story was excellent and I really liked the writing style. The pace of the writing was brisk and went pretty quickly. The development of the characters was excellently written.

Content Warnings

chrisscrivens's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

gfarinas's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark informative mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

jgintrovertedreader's review against another edition

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3.0

Matthew Shardlake has been summoned by Archbishop Cranmer to assist with some law work as King Henry makes a royal progress through the rebellious north. He must also try to keep a prisoner alive for later questioning. But conspiracies still abound in the area and Shardlake's life is endangered when he stumbles onto something.

Reading this felt like slogging through the mud created by the never-ending rain in the book. It just dragged on and on and on. Finally, in about the last hundred pages, the action picked up and everything started to get interesting.

I enjoyed reading more about Shardlake and Barak, but overall, I have a lot of problems with the book. There were a lot of typos that drove me crazy. The Bealknap case (remember that from [b:Dark Fire|138683|Dark Fire (Matthew Shardlake #2)|C.J. Sansom|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172096995s/138683.jpg|4595372]?) is still. dragging. on. C'mon and let it die already! With Shardlake being in the barbarous north, he obviously doesn't really understand the dialect. The explanation of some of the more common terms was unbelievably clumsy. One character basically says out of the blue, "Oh, by the way, old boy, did you know that gate means street up here?" Yes, it really was that bad.

Reading this so soon after [a:Ken Follett|3447|Ken Follett|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1197600287p2/3447.jpg]'s [b:The Pillars of the Earth|5043|The Pillars of the Earth|Ken Follett|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165517379s/5043.jpg|3359698] was actually pretty interesting. In Pillars, we get to see how important the monasteries are and the hard work that goes into building a cathedral. In Sansom's books, the pendulum has swung the other way and they're being destroyed. I've never really thought too much about how much art, architecture, and history was lost in these kinds of purges, but the juxtaposition of the two books really brought that home for me.

I'll keep reading, and if you've read the others, I would recommend you do the same. It was still decent, and I do look forward to the next in the series. I just hope it's better.

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