Tombland (The Shardlake series) By C. J. Sansom. 9781447284512
07 Dec, 2022
An engrossing whodunnit, set a couple of years after the death of Henry VIII, with startling parallels to modern times. Well worth a read.
CJ Sansom is a superb writer. Tombland tells a story centring around an often forgotten chapter of English history. Expensive, failed foreign wars led to debasement of English currency. This resulted in massive inflation. As always, the poor suffered most. Rapacious landowners enclose the commons for their sheep, thereby dispossessing poorer farmers who had used them for centuries to eke out a living. Rising inflation, a squeeze on earnings, selfish, corrupt elites, and a legal system that favours the rich, something must give. It does. Sansom tells the tale of the rebellion with his customary skill. He describes the leaders of the rebellion with sympathy. It is hard not to see the parallels with modern times.