PattyMacDotComma's Reviews > Revelation

4.5★
“The water under the ice was red, bright red. My heart began thumping painfully. By their short black robes, the two young men standing staring into the fountain were students.
. . .
‘There’s – there’s a man in the fountain,’ he said in a trembling voice. The other student pointed at something sticking out of the water. ‘That – that’s a foot.’
. . .
But I sat transfixed by what was, for me, a double horror. The first was the great gaping wound in the man’s throat, red against the dead-white skin and stretching almost from ear to ear. The second was the face.”

The face is of an old friend of Matthew Shardlake, and he promises the widow (whom he knew and cared for since their youth) to find the killer. This is the 1500s, Reformation England, when London had a population of about 60,000.

Shardlake is a busy London lawyer who used to work for Thomas Cromwell, but with Cromwell gone (executed), he has been leading a more ordinary life and trying to stay out of King Henry VIII’s line of fire.

This is a grisly, gruesome tale, and if it were anybody but Matthew Shardlake, I probably wouldn’t follow where he goes. It is also a bit long, as this follows the trail of a serial killer who has a list of targets, making Shardlake’s work doubly difficult, as he and the others try to figure out who will be the next one chosen to represent the madman’s vision of revenge.

All must be kept hidden from the King and the public, as it seems possible that the King’s latest fancy may be a target – Catherine Parr, a recent widow.

“ The King did not look kindly on those who kept secrets from him. I realized I was involved again in something that could get me in bad odour with the King. Something dangerous. A second time, I might not survive. Yet I had sworn; there was nothing to do but go on.”

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, features as the authority to whom Shardlake reports and who supplies or commandeers the necessary manpower.

Archbishop Thomas Cranmer (Wikipedia)

It all has to do with religion, of course, only this time it’s what level of reform is now acceptable. King Henry VIII proclaimed himself the head of his own new Church of England because the Pope wouldn’t allow him to divorce and remarry.

I’m sure many Anglicans and Episcopalians are not aware he was the founder of their church. Catholics are still forbidden, but now Cromwell’s spreading Bibles everywhere is frowned upon, and people are being burned and tortured if they’re in the wrong camp.

Meanwhile, Shardlake, the Archbishop and the others must ensure nothing interferes with Henry’s pursuit of Catherine Parr. There is some interesting romantic intrigue here.

Catherine Parr (Wikipedia)

Shardlake also has a young client who’s been admitted to the Bedlam – the insane asylum. He can’t stop praying, so much that he doesn’t eat or clean himself. He’s convinced he’s a sinner. Between the hunt for the serial killer and the mystery of the young madman, Shardlake is run ragged, injured, insulted and heart-broken. He has a hunched back and is often called Crookback by those making fun of him.

Shardlake’s old friend Guy, the Moorish doctor and former monk, is back in action as is young Jack Barack, now his assistant, married to Tamasin, the feisty and lovely young woman who was working for the Queen in Sovereign, the previous book. Barack is young and strong and brave . . . and frightened.

“‘You know what scares me most of all?’ Barak asked suddenly.

‘What?’

‘The way every killing seems to be planned to show us the killer is cleverer than we are. He presents them to us like trophies.’”

He does – ghastly, macabre, horrifying trophies. I’m not generally a fan of serial killer stories, but for some reason, I can read these – perhaps because they take place so long ago, I can escape.

“Seymour bent and picked up the head with no more concern than if it had been a football. I remembered the ghastly story of the cart full of Turkish heads in Hungary.”

The author brings the times to life so authentically that I shudder and wince along with Shardlake at the sights and smells and the pelting rain and the thought of wading through freezing marshes. I cringe equally as he visits his young client in the Bedlam.

But it’s worth it! This could be read as a stand-alone, I think, although as with most series, it’s nice to know the back stories. It's also an interesting way to learn a little history.

I reviewed the earlier books here:
Dissolution
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Dark Fire
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Sovereign
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...