by C . J . Sansom (Author)
It is 1540 and the hottest summer of the sixteenth century. Matthew Shardlake, believing himself out of favour with Thomas Cromwell, is busy trying to maintain his legal practice and keep a low profile. But his involvement with a murder case, defending a girl accused of brutally murdering her young cousin, brings him once again into contact with the king's chief minister - and a new assignment ...The secret of Greek Fire, the legendary substance with which the Byzantines destroyed the Arab navies, has been lost for centuries. Now an official of the Court of Augmentations has discovered the formula in the library of a dissolved London monastery. When Shardlake is sent to recover it, he finds the official and his alchemist brother brutally murdered - the formula has disappeared. Now Shardlake must follow the trail of Greek Fire across Tudor London, while trying at the same time to prove his young client's innocence. But very soon he discovers nothing is as it seems ...
Format: Paperback
Pages: 595
Edition: Reprints
Publisher: Pan
Published: 18 May 2007
ISBN 10: 0330450786
ISBN 13: 9780330450782
Book Overview: The Shardlake backlist is being reissued in B format alongside the paperback of the third in the series, Sovereign This series is winning a loyal following - over 160,000 copies of the first two Shardlake novels sold in Pan paperback Guaranteed to appeal to readers of all kinds - clever, witty, atmospheric, and featuring a wry, rueful, compassionate hero Dark Fire won the 2005 CWA Ellis Peters Historical Dagger Sovereign has been shortlisted for the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Fiction Crime Award 2006 Ecstatic reviews: 'It's in his Tudor novels that Sansom's remarkable talents really blaze out' Sunday Times; 'This series just gets better and better' Bookseller