The Shardlake novels are a series of historical mystery novels by C. J. Sansom set during and after the reign of Henry VIII in England in the 16th century.
The series' main character is the hunchbacked lawyer Matthew Shardlake, who is assisted in his adventures by a series of 'assistants': his legal clerk Mark Poer (Dissolution), Former street urchin and Cromwellian Fixer Jack Barak (Dark Fire - Tombland), and the young minor nobleman/law student Nicholas Overton (Lamentation - Tombland). Shardlake works on commission initially from Thomas Cromwell in Dissolution and Dark Fire, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer in Sovereign and Revelation, Queen Catherine Parr in Heartstone and Lamentation, and the future Elizabeth I in Tombland.
The series so far consists of:
- Dissolution
- Dark Fire
- Sovereign
- Revelation
- Heartstone
- Lamentation
- Tombland
The Shardlake series provides examples of:
- Adipose Rex: Henry VIII. Very much Truth in Television as far as his later years are concerned.
- Been There, Shaped History: Among other things, Shardlake has a minor role in the downfall of Thomas Cromwell, is on the Mary Rose when it sinks, and takes part in Kett's Rebellion.
- Climbing Climax: At the climax of Dissolution, Shardlake pursues his suspect up the monastery bell tower.
- Crusading Lawyer
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Shardlake shares the era's prejudice against "sodomites", and uses the term interchangeably with "pederast".
- Desolation Shot: The last chapter of Dissolution has Shardlake return to Scarnsea Abbey after it's been been shut down and the demolition gangs have started work.
- Disney Villain Death: Following the Climbing Climax of Dissolution, the villain falls to the church floor. Combined with Death by Materialism, as Shardlake is convinced their ill-gotten gains spoiled their balance.
- Dirty Old Monk: Being a good-looking young woman (or a good-looking young man) at Scarnsea Abbey can get you the wrong kind of attention.
- Full-Circle Revolution: Shardlake can see the English Reformation turning into this — replacing a Corrupt Church with an Evil Aristocracy won't improve the lot of the common man at all.
- The Grotesque: Shardlake isn't particularly deformed but you wouldn't know it by the way some of the people around him treat him.
- Foregone Conclusion: If you know what happened to the Mary Rose, you'll have figured out what will happen to Shardlake's soldier friends who get posted on board said ship long before the climax of Heartstone.
- Historical Domain Character: Loads. Shardlake initially works for Thomas Cromwell and ends up working for several others who are close to Henry VIII. The King himself confronts Shardlake in the climax of Lamentation.
- The Lancer: Barack has shades of this.
- MacGuffin: Dark Fire sees Shardlake trying to find the secret of Greek Fire
, following the discovery of a document on this subject in a dissolved London monastery. This basically becomes an ultimately futile search for a barrel of oil in Tudor-era London. - Quicksand Sucks: Scarnsea Abbey is on the edge of a marsh, which is said to have swallowed unwary travellers whole.
- Shout-Out: In Dissolution, to The Name of the Rose: Scarnsea Abbey has a copy of Aristotle's "On Comedy" - "a fake, of course, thirteenth-century Italian". As with the original, it's stated to end up on the bonfire by the end of the book, along with the rest of the monastery's library.
- Sweet Polly Oliver
- The Watson: Shardlake uses Mark Poer as a sounding board in Dissolution, which he resents.
