What a pleasure it is to be back in the company of hunchback lawyer Matthew Shardlake, the thinking woman’s sixteenth century crumpet. Tombland is the seventh novel in the Shardlake series and reading the first six is necessary pleasure, so please go and do that before beginning this one. It’s the best historical fiction series I’ve encountered.
Tombland is set in 1549, two years after the death of Henry VIII. The Protector Edward Seymour rules the kingdom in the name of the eleven year old King. The economy is quite a mess, ravaged by inflation and a brutal and ill-considered war against Scotland. The poor are getting poorer, soldiers are deserting the army in record numbers, the art and traditions of old religion are being systematically destroyed and everyone’s dissatified.
Shardlake meanwhile is doing what he does best; investigating a nasty murder at the behest of a powerful patron, in this case the King’s half sister, Elizabeth. The accused murderer is the husband of the victim, a Boleyn distantly related to Elizabeth. So Shardlake diligently sets off to find out what he can with the assistance of old friends (yay for Jack Barak, the thinking woman’s bit of rough), but along the way they get entangled in a rebellion and the majority of the novel takes place in a rebel camp. The longer the rebellion continues the more thoroughly Shardlake sympathises with the rebels’ demands for fair use of common land and restraints on the abuse of power by the ruling class. But this is England in 1549, and really that’s never going to happen. We’re all just waiting for the inevitable and bloody government-sanctioned violence against the rebels to explode. The build up is intense but amidst the chaos Shardlake somehow manages to solve the murder, which puts his own life in significant peril. When the battle finally commences Sansom manages to convey the full horror of it and its bloody, putrid, disturbing aftermath.
At more than 800 pages, Tombland is a handy doorstop of a novel, but somehow Sansom manages to keep it interesting. There is perhaps a little repetitive monotony in the days and days Shardlake spends waking up in the rebel camp and reporting on the weather and exactly what was eaten for dinner (note- it’s always pottage), but at no point did I want to stop reading. I don’t know quite how Samson does it, but in Shardlake he has created such an intelligent and compassionate character it is compelling just to witness how he survives and even manages to protect others in the brutal and unsympathetic times in which he lives. Tombland is a worthy inclusion in the excellent Shardlake series; hopefully is won’t be its conclusion.
