Shardlake's investigations take him down a trail that begins among printshops in the filthy backstreets of London, but leads him once more to the labyrinthine world of court politics, where Protestant friends can be as dangerous as Catholic enemies, and those who will support either side to further their ambition are the most dangerous of all. The London printer into whose hands she entrusted the manuscript has been murdered, the book nowhere to be found. Lamentation is sixth in the Shardlake series, set at a critical time for the politics of Englands religion and for its ailing ruler, Henry VIII. The gruesome murder of one of Elizabeths distant. The Queen has written a confessional book, Lamentation of a Sinner, a memoir so radical that if it came to the King's attention, it could bring her and her courtly sympathizers to ruination. Matthew Shardlake has been working as a lawyer in the service of Henrys younger daughter, the lady Elizabeth. There is even a rather fascinating secondary plot which serves to relieve a bit of the tension and serves as a diversion from Royal intrigues. As Catherine begins to lose the King's favour, she turns to the shrewd, hunchbacked lawyer, Matthew Shardlake, to contain a potentially fatal secret. Lamentation is not a story of palaces it is a story filled with danger, sword fights, death, suspense and plot twists it is all here. The Catholics decide to focus their attack on Henry's sixth wife, the Protestant Queen Catherine Parr. His Protestant and Catholic councillors prepare for a final and decisive power struggle whoever wins will control the government.

King Henry VIII is slowly, painfully dying. As Henry VIII lies on his deathbed, an incendiary manuscript threatens to tear his court apart in the new installment of C.J.

Lamentation cj sansom summary