Set in the year 1543, when Catherine Parr is in line to be Henry VIII’s sixth wife after the beheading of Catherine Howard the year before, this murder mystery is intertwined with the religious upheaval of the time. The hero, the hunchback lawyer Michael Shardlake, is for a fourth time asked to solve the crimes, now of a serial killer, who seemed to be basing his murders on the eight vials mentioned in the Book of Revelation in the Bible. Who is the ‘whore’ who is to be the final victim? Shardlake is called upon to defend a reformist young man who had been committed to the Bedlam asylum, whose seeming madness is based on his belief that he will be damned to hell for his ‘grave sin’. How did this case relate to the series of murders which began with the death of Shardlake’s great friend, Roger Elliard, and which drew him into seeking out the murderer?
It is somewhat hard to get into the novel, but once in, one enters the world of the Sixteenth Century admirably, refreshingly steering clear of simple political intrigues and the royals, and concentrating more on the religious differences at war with each other and struggling for supremacy. All the characters are flawed, including the protagonist, in an attempt to make them appear more real. Gruesome descriptions of the murders and the investigation, by opening up their bodies, make for a generally morbid but vivid atmosphere. Such hyper-realism is added to with occasional swearing, and topics such as brutality, violence, rape, fornication, and sodomy, all of which are meant to make the plot more believable for the time it is set. The author is very strong on plot and natural dialogue, with an apocalyptic denouement which dubiously links the deaths with the possible new queen. The religious link between the maniac Adam Kite and the serial killer was perhaps a little too obvious.
Extremely well-researched and believable, taking real historical characters such as Archbishop Cranmer, Catherine Parr, and the Seymour brothers, and then spinning a murder mystery which will grab the reader from start to finish. It is the story of religious fanaticism, with an effort to understand the little-known science of mental illness and the Bedlam inmates. Shardlake himself is a disillusioned Protestant turned atheist. The author fixes on a radical reading of the Book of Revelation, where the end times are coming and only the elite will be saved. It is a study of the old religion, the radicals, and the reformers, all vying to come out on top. Radicals, so says this book, were convinced that the Book of Revelation justified the violent elimination of those destined for hell. The book’s great length (it could so easily have been shorter) made it clear that one needed to endure eight murders before finding out who the killer was, and he was bound to be doing so for some fanatical religious reasons.
The actual revealing of the killer was somewhat disappointing, as it was difficult to imagine him, knowing his history, having so many combat skills and being so aware of the movements of others, enough to kill them. How he actually became such an obsessive radical reformer is not well-explained. The ending, therefore, was a little unsatisfying. The relationship between Shardlake and Dorothy, the widow of his friend Roger Elliard, is not very convincing. On the whole, though, this is a skillfully written murder mystery told by someone who has a deep knowledge of the times.