The Shardlake series by C.J. Sansom is one of the finest achievements in historical crime fiction. Across seven novels, published between 2003 and 2018, Matthew Shardlake, a hunchbacked London lawyer, investigates murders at the heart of the most dangerous years of Tudor England, from the dissolution of the monasteries in 1537 to Kett’s Rebellion in 1549.
Each book pairs a gripping mystery with a real historical crisis: the fall of Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s great progress to York, the sinking of the Mary Rose, the plots against Queen Catherine Parr. Shardlake is a decent, clever and often frightened man, trying to keep his conscience intact in an age of religious terror, and the series follows him through it all.
C.J. Sansom died in April 2024, and the seven novels are the complete series. This guide gives the reading order, a spoiler-free summary of each book, where to start, the TV adaptation, and the series to read next.
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Quick Series Facts
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Author | C.J. Sansom |
| Number of books | 7 novels (complete) |
| First book | Dissolution (2003) |
| Last book | Tombland (2018) |
| Setting | England, 1537 to 1549, from Henry VIII to Edward VI |
| Genre | Historical mystery, legal thriller |
| Main characters | Matthew Shardlake, Jack Barak, Guy Malton, Nicholas Overton |
| Reading order | Publication order, which is also the chronological order |
| Adaptation | Shardlake (Disney+, 2024), starring Arthur Hughes |
Shardlake Books in Publication Order
Publication order is the right way to read the series, and it is also the chronological order: each book is set a year or more after the one before. Every novel has its own self-contained mystery, but Shardlake’s friendships, enemies, health and beliefs change from book to book, so reading out of order spoils the earlier novels.
The Henrician Books (1537 to 1543)
The first four novels follow Shardlake through the middle years of Henry VIII’s reign, working first for Thomas Cromwell and then for Archbishop Cranmer.
1. Dissolution (2003)
Setting: Scarnsea, a Benedictine monastery on the Sussex coast, 1537
England is in the grip of Thomas Cromwell’s campaign against the monasteries. When Cromwell’s commissioner Robin Singleton is found beheaded at the monastery of Scarnsea, Cromwell sends Matthew Shardlake, a reformer and one of his loyal lawyers, to find the killer.
With his young assistant Mark Poer, Shardlake arrives at a monastery full of secrets, where every monk has a reason to hate the men who have come to close their house. The novel introduces Shardlake, his fervent early faith in reform, and the moral cost of the Reformation he serves.
2. Dark Fire (2004)
Setting: London, summer 1540
Shardlake is out of favour with Cromwell when he takes on the defence of a girl accused of murdering her young cousin, a case that seems hopeless. Cromwell secures a reprieve for her, at a price: Shardlake must recover the formula for Greek Fire, the legendary weapon of the Byzantines, which an official of the Court of Augmentations claims to have found in the library of a dissolved monastery.
When Shardlake goes to collect it, he finds the official and his alchemist brother brutally murdered and the formula gone. With Cromwell’s enemies gathering and the king’s interest in a new marriage growing, Shardlake and Cromwell’s man Jack Barak race against the clock through London. Dark Fire won the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Dagger in 2005.
3. Sovereign (2006)
Setting: York, autumn 1541
Henry VIII sets off on a great progress to the North, to receive the submission of the region that rose against him in the Pilgrimage of Grace. Archbishop Cranmer sends Shardlake and Barak to York with two tasks: officially, to process petitions to the king; secretly, to make sure a dangerous political prisoner, Sir Edward Broderick, reaches London alive to be questioned in the Tower.
Then a York glazier is murdered, and Shardlake is drawn into a conspiracy that reaches back decades and touches the king’s own right to the throne. With the vast royal court arriving in a hostile city, the danger comes closer to the king, and to Shardlake, than ever before.
4. Revelation (2008)
Setting: London, spring 1543
Henry VIII is courting Catherine Parr, who would rather not become his sixth wife, and London is a city of religious fear. When an old friend of Shardlake’s is murdered in a horrifying way, his search for the killer leads him to Cranmer, to the reformers around Catherine Parr, and to the dark prophecies of the Book of Revelation.
At the same time, Shardlake takes on the case of a teenage boy, a religious obsessive held in the Bedlam hospital, whose release could see him burned as a heretic. Many readers rate Revelation the darkest book in the series.
The Last Years of Henry VIII and After (1545 to 1549)
The last three novels follow Shardlake into the service of Queen Catherine Parr, through the final, terrifying years of Henry’s reign and into the troubled reign of his son.
5. Heartstone (2010)
Setting: London, Portsmouth and Hampshire, summer 1545
Henry VIII’s invasion of France has gone badly, and a huge French fleet is preparing to sail on England. An old servant of Queen Catherine Parr asks Shardlake to look into claims of “monstrous wrongs” done to a young ward of the court, a matter that has already involved one mysterious death.
Shardlake and Barak travel to Portsmouth, where the English fleet, the Mary Rose among it, is gathering for battle. Shardlake also sets out to uncover the past of Ellen Fettiplace, a young woman held in Bedlam, whose family was destroyed nineteen years before.
6. Lamentation (2014)
Setting: London, summer 1546
Henry VIII is dying, and the Catholic and Protestant factions are fighting to control the regency for his young son, Prince Edward. The heretic Anne Askew has been burned at the stake, and the hunt for heresy reaches the court itself.
Queen Catherine Parr turns to Shardlake when her confessional manuscript, Lamentation of a Sinner, is stolen from her chambers. If the book reached the king, it could destroy her and her circle, and Shardlake must find it before her enemies do.
7. Tombland (2018)
Setting: Norwich and Norfolk, summer 1549
Two years after Henry VIII’s death, England is sliding into chaos under the boy king Edward VI. Shardlake is now working for the Lady Elizabeth, and when Edith Boleyn, the wife of a distant Boleyn relative, is found murdered near Norwich and her husband John is accused, Elizabeth sends him to investigate.
With his assistant Nicholas Overton, Shardlake travels to Norwich, where he meets Jack Barak again. Then a peasant rebellion led by Robert Kett erupts around the city, and the rebels set up a vast camp outside its walls. The longest book in the series, Tombland ends with Sansom’s own essay on Kett’s Rebellion.
Upcoming or Announced Books
There are no further Shardlake novels. C.J. Sansom was working on an eighth Shardlake book when he died in April 2024, after a long illness, and his publisher has not announced plans to publish it. Tombland is the last book in the series.
Chronological Order vs Publication Order
For Shardlake there is no difference: the books were published in the order of their settings, from 1537 to 1549. Read them in publication order, starting with Dissolution.
About the Shardlake Series
Series Overview
Each Shardlake novel centres on a murder or a mystery, usually set in motion by a powerful patron: Thomas Cromwell in the first two books, Archbishop Cranmer in the next two, Queen Catherine Parr in the fifth and sixth, and the Lady Elizabeth in Tombland. The investigations always run into the great events of the day, so Shardlake has to solve the crime while staying alive at court.
Shardlake himself is the heart of the series. His curved spine makes him an outsider in a world that equates physical strength with worth, and his legal mind lets him see through lies. Across the books his faith moves from eager support for reform to a weary distrust of zealots on every side, as he sees the cruelty done in the name of both religions.
Around him Sansom builds a cast of recurring characters: Jack Barak, Cromwell’s streetwise former agent, who becomes Shardlake’s assistant; Guy Malton, the physician and former monk who is his closest friend; Nicholas Overton, his young pupil in the later books; and Stephen Bealknap, his enemy in the law courts.
What Makes the Shardlake Series Special
- A great detective: Shardlake is one of historical fiction’s most human heroes, clever, decent, frequently afraid and always honest with himself.
- History from below: Sansom shows Tudor England through lawyers, servants, monks, beggars and rebels as well as kings and queens.
- Real events: Each book is built around a real crisis, and Sansom’s historical notes explain what is fact and what is invented.
- Moral weight: The series takes the human cost of the Reformation seriously, and its questions about power and conscience still feel urgent.
- Long, immersive books: Sansom’s novels are big and detailed, and the period comes to life on every page.
Where to Start with the Shardlake Series
New to the Series?
Start here: Dissolution
Dissolution introduces Shardlake, his early faith in reform and his relationship with Thomas Cromwell, and everything in the later books builds on it. It is also a complete, satisfying mystery on its own, so it is the best possible test of whether the series is for you.
Can You Start Elsewhere?
Each book has its own self-contained mystery, so a later novel can be read on its own, but you will meet characters and events from earlier books, and some earlier plots are given away. If you have watched the Disney+ series, you already know the story of Dissolution, and you could begin with Dark Fire, though the novel still has much more in it than the adaptation.
What to Expect
The novels are long, from around 400 pages for Dissolution to well over 800 for Tombland. The tone is dark: torture, executions and religious persecution appear throughout, and these are not cosy mysteries. The mysteries unfold slowly and carefully, with plenty of room for history and character.
About the Author: C.J. Sansom
C.J. Sansom (1952 to 2024) was born in Edinburgh. He took a BA and then a PhD in history at the University of Birmingham, and after several jobs he retrained as a solicitor, practising in Sussex for people who could not otherwise afford a lawyer, before becoming a full-time writer.
Both careers shaped Shardlake. The historian gives the novels their depth and their long historical notes; the lawyer gives Shardlake his cases, his courtroom battles and his feel for how the law works for and against ordinary people. Dissolution, his first novel, was shortlisted for the CWA’s Ellis Peters Historical Dagger, and Dark Fire won it in 2005. In 2022 the Crime Writers’ Association gave him the Cartier Diamond Dagger for his lifetime’s work.
Sansom also wrote two standalone novels: Winter in Madrid (2006), a spy thriller set in Spain in 1940, and Dominion (2012), an alternate history of a Britain that made peace with Nazi Germany. He died in April 2024, days before the Disney+ adaptation of Dissolution was released.
Historical Context: Tudor England, 1537 to 1549
The Shardlake novels cover twelve of the most turbulent years in English history. When the series opens, Henry VIII has broken with Rome and made himself head of the English church, and Thomas Cromwell is closing the monasteries, which held a large share of the country’s wealth and land. By 1540 they were gone, and with them the hospitals, schools and charity they provided.
Henry’s later years were a time of fear. Cromwell was executed in 1540, Queen Catherine Howard in 1542, and even Catherine Parr came under threat in 1546. Religious policy swung between reform and tradition as factions rose and fell, and a word in the wrong place could mean the Tower. That atmosphere runs through the books.
After Henry’s death in 1547, the government of the boy king Edward VI pushed hard towards Protestantism, while enclosures of common land and rising prices drove ordinary people to revolt. In 1549 risings broke out across England, the largest of them in Norfolk under Robert Kett, the setting of Tombland.
Sansom’s accuracy is one of the great strengths of the series. Shardlake and most of his cases are invented, but the events, the politics and the texture of daily life are carefully researched, and each novel ends with a historical note separating fact from fiction. For more novels set in these years, see our Tudor England guide and our list of the best Tudor historical fiction.
Similar Series You’ll Love
If you have enjoyed Shardlake, these series offer a similar appeal:
1. Giordano Bruno by S.J. Parris
The natural next step. S.J. Parris moves the Tudor mystery forward to the 1580s, with the real philosopher Giordano Bruno working as a spy for Elizabeth I’s spymaster Francis Walsingham, starting with Heresy. The same blend of murder, religion and politics, with a faster pace.
2. Wolf Hall Trilogy by Hilary Mantel
The same years from inside the court. Mantel’s Wolf Hall tells the story of Thomas Cromwell himself, and he is a very different man from the frightening master of Dissolution. Reading both is fascinating.
3. Brother Cadfael by Ellis Peters
The series that made the historical mystery popular. Cadfael is a monk and herbalist solving murders at Shrewsbury Abbey during the civil war of the 1130s and 1140s, starting with A Morbid Taste for Bones. Gentler than Shardlake, but with the same care for the period and for ordinary people.
4. Six Tudor Queens by Alison Weir
For readers who want more of the women at the centre of Shardlake’s later books. Alison Weir gives each of Henry VIII’s wives a novel of her own, beginning with Katherine of Aragon: The True Queen, and the last book tells Catherine Parr’s story.
5. Marcus Didius Falco by Lindsey Davis
A different era, but the same pleasure of a sharp-eyed investigator moving between the powerful and the poor. Falco is an informer in Vespasian’s Rome, starting with The Silver Pigs, and the books are much funnier than Sansom’s.
More recommendations: Best Historical Mystery Fiction
Adaptations
Shardlake (Disney+, 2024)
Shardlake is a four-part series based on Dissolution, released on Disney+ on 1 May 2024. Arthur Hughes plays Matthew Shardlake, Anthony Boyle plays Jack Barak and Sean Bean plays Thomas Cromwell. In the UK it was later shown on ITV, in 2025. Disney+ did not commission a second series, so the later books have not been adapted.
The biggest change from the book is that Jack Barak, who first appears in the second novel, is at Shardlake’s side from the start, and the plot is compressed to fit four episodes. If you watched it first, the novel is still well worth reading for its depth and its history.
Radio
BBC Radio 4 has adapted Dissolution (2012) and Revelation (2017) as radio serials.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many books are in the Shardlake series?
There are seven novels: Dissolution (2003), Dark Fire (2004), Sovereign (2006), Revelation (2008), Heartstone (2010), Lamentation (2014) and Tombland (2018).
What order should I read the Shardlake books in?
Read them in publication order, starting with Dissolution and ending with Tombland. The publication order is also the chronological order of the stories, from 1537 to 1549.
Do I need to read the Shardlake books in order?
It is strongly recommended. Each book has its own mystery, but Shardlake’s relationships, health and beliefs change across the series, and later books refer back to the earlier ones.
What is the Shardlake series about?
It follows Matthew Shardlake, a hunchbacked lawyer in Tudor London, as he investigates murders linked to the great events of Henry VIII’s reign and its aftermath, from the dissolution of the monasteries to Kett’s Rebellion in 1549.
Is Matthew Shardlake a real historical figure?
No. Shardlake and most of the crimes he investigates are fictional, but many of the people he meets are real, including Thomas Cromwell, Archbishop Cranmer, Catherine Parr and the Lady Elizabeth.
Is the Shardlake series historically accurate?
Yes, it is carefully researched. C.J. Sansom had a PhD in history, and each novel ends with a historical note explaining what is fact and what is invented. The mysteries are fiction, but the events, politics and daily life are grounded in the record.
Will there be more Shardlake books?
No new books have been announced. C.J. Sansom was working on an eighth Shardlake novel when he died in April 2024, and Tombland (2018) is the last published book in the series.
What time period do the Shardlake books cover?
The novels run from 1537 to 1549: the last ten years of Henry VIII’s reign and the first years of his son Edward VI.
Are the Shardlake books suitable for teenagers?
They are written for adults. There is torture, execution, religious persecution and violent crime, so they suit mature older teens at most.
Which Shardlake book is the best?
Readers disagree. Dissolution is a near-perfect introduction, Dark Fire won the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger, Sovereign and Tombland are the most ambitious, and Revelation is the darkest. Most fans say the best way is simply to read all seven in order.
How long are the Shardlake books?
They are long. Dissolution runs to around 400 pages, and the books grow longer as the series goes on, with Tombland well over 800 pages in most editions.
Are the Shardlake books available as audiobooks?
Yes. All seven are available as audiobooks, read by Steven Crossley, as well as in print and as ebooks.
Is there a Shardlake TV series?
Yes. Shardlake, a four-part adaptation of Dissolution, was released on Disney+ in 2024, with Arthur Hughes as Shardlake and Sean Bean as Thomas Cromwell. BBC Radio 4 has also adapted Dissolution and Revelation.
What should I read after Shardlake?
S.J. Parris’s Giordano Bruno series is the closest match, moving the Tudor mystery into the reign of Elizabeth I. For the same years seen from inside the court, try Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall Trilogy.
Conclusion
The Shardlake series is the gold standard of the Tudor mystery: seven big, absorbing novels that bring the most frightening years of Henry VIII’s England to life through the eyes of one decent, stubborn lawyer.
Start with Dissolution, follow Shardlake through the fall of Cromwell, the great progress, the sinking of the Mary Rose and the plots against the queen, and finish with Tombland among Kett’s rebels. Few historical series are as rewarding.