Fiction

‘Hilary Mantel has a serious rival’ – Sunday Times

‘History never seemed so real’ – New York Times

Heartstone is the fifth spellbinding mystery in C. J. Sansom’s number one bestselling Shardlake series, perfect for fans of Hilary Mantel and Philippa Gregory.

England, 1545. England is at war. Henry VIII’s invasion of France has gone badly wrong, and a massive French fleet is preparing to sail across the Channel.

Meanwhile, Matthew Shardlake is given an intriguing legal case by an old servant of Queen Catherine Parr. Asked to investigate claims of ‘monstrous wrongs’ committed against a young ward of the court, Shardlake and his assistant Jack Barak journey to Portsmouth. There, Shardlake also intends to investigate the mysterious past of Ellen Fettiplace, a young woman incarcerated in the Bedlam.

Once in Portsmouth, Shardlake and Barak find themselves in a city preparing for war. The mysteries surrounding the two cases involve Shardlake in reunions both with an old friend and an old enemy close to the throne. And soon, events will converge on board one of the King’s great warships gathered in Portsmouth harbour, waiting to confront the approaching French fleet . . .

Heartstone is the fifth novel in C. J. Sansom’s gripping historical series. It is followed by the sixth book in the series, Lamentation.

Winner of the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Dagger

‘Hilary Mantel has a serious rival’ – Sunday Times

‘History never seemed so real’ – New York Times

Dark Fire is the second thrilling book in C. J. Sansom’s number one bestselling Shardlake series, perfect for fans of Hilary Mantel and Philippa Gregory.

England, 1540. Out of favour with Thomas Cromwell, Matthew Shardlake is intent on keeping a low profile in the courts. But his involvement with a murder case, defending a girl accused of brutally killing 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 monastery. When Shardlake is sent to recover it, he finds the official and his alchemist brother brutally murdered – the formula gone.

Now Shardlake must follow the trail of Greek Fire across Tudor London, while still trying to prove his young client’s innocence. But very soon he discovers nothing is as it seems . . .

This is the second novel in C. J. Sansom’s gripping historial series. It is followed by Sovereign, the third book in the series.

In this semi-autobiographical work, a man abandons his life of privilege to live among eccentrics, criminals and the impoverished of Knoxville. Suttree is a humorous, compelling tapestry of life on the edge from Cormac McCarthy, author of The Road and Blood Meridian.

‘Suttree contains a humour that is Faulknerian in its gentle wryness, and a freakish imaginative flair’ – Times Literary Supplement

1951. Cornelius Suttree lives alone, exiled on a disintegrating houseboat on the wrong side of the Tennessee River. As we meet him, Suttree watches the police haul the body of a suicidal man from the water. Amongst the living, the river is home to hermits, sex workers, alcoholics – and a witch.

Conjuring James Joyce’s Ulysses, Suttree wanders the river with a detachment and wry humour, encountering a broad cast of humanity as he does – even as dereliction and destitution threaten the last of his remaining dignity.

‘Suttree is like a good, long scream in the ear’ – New York Times

Praise for Cormac McCarthy:

‘McCarthy worked close to some religious impulse, his books were terrifying and absolute’ – Anne Enright, author of The Green Road and The Wren, The Wren

‘His prose takes on an almost biblical quality, hallucinatory in its effect and evangelical in its power’ – Stephen King, author of The Shining and the Dark Tower series

‘[I]n presenting the darker human impulses in his rich prose, [McCarthy] showed readers the necessity of facing up to existence’ – Annie Proulx, author of Brokeback Mountain