historical mystery
The historical mystery or historical whodunit is a subgenre of two literary genres, historical fiction and mystery fiction. These works are set in a time period considered historical from the author's perspective, and the central plot involves th ...
novel by British author C. J. Sansom. It is Sansom's first published novel, and the first in the Matthew Shardlake Series. It was dramatised by BBC Radio 4 in 2012.
Background
Set in the 16th century during the dissolution of the monasteries, the book follows the lawyer Shardlake in his attempts to solve the murder of one of
Thomas Cromwell
Thomas Cromwell (; 1485 – 28 July 1540), briefly Earl of Essex, was an English lawyer and statesman who served as chief minister to King Henry VIII from 1534 to 1540, when he was beheaded on orders of the king, who later blamed false char ...
's commissioners in the
monastery
A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone ( hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer whi ...
at the fictional town of Scarnsea on the south coast of England.
Reception
''Dissolution'' has been well received by critics, although there has been some criticism of the language and detail in the writing. "The best crime novel I have read this year" –
Colin Dexter
Norman Colin Dexter (29 September 1930 – 21 March 2017) was an English crime writer known for his ''Inspector Morse'' series of novels, which were written between 1975 and 1999 and adapted as an ITV television series, ''Inspector Morse'', fr ...
; "Remarkable...the sights, the voices, the very smell of this turbulent age seem to rise from the page" –
P. D. James
Phyllis Dorothy James, Baroness James of Holland Park, (3 August 1920 – 27 November 2014), known professionally as P. D. James, was an English novelist and life peer. Her rise to fame came with her series of detective novels featuring th ...
;Dissolution - critical praise at Reading Group Guides. "This is a humdinger of a whodunnit. Read it!" – Colin Dexter; "This is historical fiction at its finest." – Peter Robinson.''Dissolution'' Barnes & Noble The US ''Library Journal'' review is more critical, commenting: "His novel is unrelentingly grim in tone, as the reader is forced to plod along with Shardlake and the other mostly unlikable characters."
''Dissolution'' was nominated for the 2003 Crime Writers' Association (CWA)
John Creasey
John Creasey (17 September 1908 – 9 June 1973) was an English crime writer, also writing science fiction, romance and western novels, who wrote more than six hundred novels using twenty-eight different pseudonyms.
He created several charac ...
Memorial Dagger, for first books by previously unpublished writers. It was also nominated for the CWA
Ellis Peters
Edith Mary Pargeter (28 September 1913 – 14 October 1995), also known by her ''nom de plume'' Ellis Peters, was an English author of works in many categories, especially history and historical fiction, and was also honoured for her transla ...
Historical Dagger in the same year.
Publication history
*2003, USA,
Viking Books
Viking Press (formally Viking Penguin, also listed as Viking Books) is an American publishing company owned by Penguin Random House. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheim and then acquire ...
, , Pub date April 2003, Hardback;
*2003, UK, Macmillan, , Pub date June 2003, Hardback;
*2004, UK,
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a British publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.Pan, , Pub date August 2004, Paperback;
*2007, UK, Macmillan Digital Audio, , Pub date August 2007,
Audiobook
An audiobook (or a talking book) is a recording of a book or other work being read out loud. A reading of the complete text is described as "unabridged", while readings of shorter versions are abridgements.
Spoken audio has been available in sc ...