Some reviewers are slick and quick. Rapid readers, they remember everything, take no notes, quote at will. I’m the plodding sort, making more notes than I can ever use and underlining so many quotes that, if I put them all in, it would constitute a republication of the book.
But I’ve not done this with Lamentation, the sixth novel in C.J. Sansom’s Tudor crime series featuring his credible and likeable hero, the lawyer Matthew Shardlake. I intended to proceed as normal, but so engrossing is the tale that I didn’t pause long enough to take a note. Even when judged by the high standards of the earlier Shardlake novels, this one stands out — not least because it successfully maintains suspense for over 600 pages, which is going it a bit.
Shardlake is a middle-aged, hunchbacked member of Lincoln’s Inn who would like to marry but has never found a wife.
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