Shardlake is a hunchbacked lawyer, who works on commission for Thomas Cromwell. The novel consists of one main character: Matthew Shardlake, and multiple supporting characters including Thomas Cromwell and Mark Poer, Shardlake’s “young protégé” (Cover Copy).ĭissolution is written in Matthew Shardlake’s perspective. The 21st-century mind proves to affect the ideas Shardlake uses to solve the murder. Sansom’s character, Shardlake, seems to have a 21st-century mind in the body of a 16th-century body. Sansom portrayed daily life in 1537, Tudor England, where much chaos crowded people during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The Dissolution of Monasteries occurred from 1536-1541 and was the set of administrative and legal processes by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents, and friaries in England, Wales, and Ireland appropriated their income, disposed of their assets, and provided for their former personnel and functions. Sansom’s novel is set in and regards the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Commissioned by Thomas Cromwell, the King’s minister dedicated to the destruction of the monasteries, he is sent on a mission to the south coast of England. Matthew Shardlake is working through the religious upheaval in the reign of Henry VIII. The novel concerns the investigation of a murder in a monastery in Tudor England, just as the monks’ world is poised to end. Dissolution proves to be an incredibly atmospheric historical fiction mystery, as the reader is easily able to visualize the different situations Sansom has created. Dissolution does a veracious job of portraying Tudor England in the sixteenth century, as Sansom explicitly delineates all aspects of daily life during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The story predominantly revolves around daily life in Tudor England, which is explicitly depicted by Sansom, who holds a history doctorate.

In Dissolution, Sansom explores life in the sixteenth century along with the mystery Shardlake is to solve: the murder of one of Cromwell’s commissioners. The series is about a fictional lawyer, Matthew Shardlake, in sixteenth-century London.

Dissolution is the first installment in the Shardlake series by C.J Sansom.

Dissolution sansom