By Paul Carrier
Matthew Shardlake, a onetime investigator for King Henry VIII’s chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, seems to have settled into a quiet London law practice now that he is no longer doing Cromwell’s bidding.
Or so he thinks.
In this second installment in C. J. Sansom’s Shardlake series, the hunchbacked attorney, known for his keen mind and philosophical bent, finds himself beholden to Cromwell for an unsolicited favor that may prevent a client accused of murder from being tortured by the government.
The client, Elizabeth Wentworth, is an orphan who had been living with her uncle and his famiy, until she is charged with shoving her cousin down a well. Another uncle, convinced that Elizabeth is innocent, hires Shardlake to get her off.
It won't be easy. Despite her plight, Elizabeth refuses to speak to anyone at Newgate Prison or in court, so she risks being “pressed” with weights until she either enters a plea or dies. Shardlake has run out of options when Cromwell forces a judge to delay the torture. In return, Cromwell demands that Shardlake find the missing formula for “dark fire” - a mysterious flammable liquid that can instantly burn and destroy anything in its path.
No sooner is Shardlake on the case than the Gristwood brothers, one of whom had stolen the formula and a barrel of the incendiary substance, are brutally murdered. Shardlake himself narrowly escapes death when someone tries to shoot him with a crossbow while he’s visiting the former monastery where the formula and the barrel were last stored before the theft.
Cromwell must get his hands on this ancient weapon of mass destruction quickly, because he has promised a demonstration for the king. This at a time when Cromwell’s standing with Henry is becoming increasingly tenuous because it is Cromwell who arranged the king’s marriage to Anne of Cleves - a marriage that has gone sour.
In fact, Cromwell’s hold on power grows shakier as the novel progresses, as allies and protégés abandon him, and powerful traditionalists with Catholic leanings plot against him. If Cromwell cannot conjure up a sample of dark fire to placate the king on the scheduled day, his head could be the next to roll.
Sansom explores the time period, which is rife with life-threatening theological disputes, with a sure hand. The reader learns of the seething turmoil that pits Catholics against English “reformers” like Cromwell, even as reformers lock horns with more radical Lutherans and Anabaptists. Heresy, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
Such seemingly arcane questions as who should be allowed to read the new English-language Bible - everyone, heads of households, or only the clergy - come to life as issues that are far from esoteric during the Reformation. The author’s mastery of the era emerges in telling details. The beheaded former queen, Anne Boleyn, is referred to in conversation as Nan Bullen. Women blacken their teeth to make a bizarre fashion statement. A guest brings his own dinner knife to a soiree, as was the custom. People who have lost loved ones wear mourning rings, sometimes in the shape of a skull.
"Once I decided which aspect of the period I want to write about - and there are so many dramatic stories in Tudor England - I set about research," Sansom explains on his web site, cjsansombooks.com. “Fortunately, I now have a large bookcase full of books about the period; so I can read up about the background, but then I have to delve deeper to find out as much as I can about the subject I have chosen.” Such work typically takes three to four months per book, Sansom writes, and it requires consulting "academic articles, obscure books and some original sources from the period."
Dark Fire would be a page turner even if it focused exclusively on the feverish search for the novel's namesake weapon, but with the fate of Elizabeth Wentworth tossed into the mix, the dual plot lines make this one especially hard to put down.
Adding a bit of spice to Dark Fire is the fact that Shardlake’s anodyne assistant from Dissolution, the first novel in the series, is long gone, replaced by the sometimes crude but always courageous Jack Barak, a cocky, wisecracking Jewish ruffian who is smarter, and more thoughtful, than Shardlake initially assumes.
