Tombland

Spring 1549. Two years after the death of Henry VIII England is sliding into chaos. The nominal king Edward VI is eleven years old. His uncle Edward Seymour Duke of Somerset rules as regent and Protector. Around the country radical Protestants are violently usurping the old religious ways while the Protector's prolonged war with Scotland is proving a disastrous failure. Worst of all the economy is in collapse famine seems imminent and rebellion is stirring among the peasantry. Since the old king's death the lawyer Matthew Shardlake has been working in the service of Henry's younger daughter the Lady Elizabeth. Edith Boleyn the wife of John Boleyn - a distant relation of Elizabeth's notorious mother - is found dead shortly after paying the Lady a visit. With his assistant Nicholas Overton Shardlake is dispatched to Norwich to investigate this gruesome murder one that could have political implications for Elizabeth. There they are reunited with Shardlake's former assistant Jack Barak. The three find layers of mystery and danger surrounding Edith's death and the surviving members of her family face new peril when a second murder is commited. Then East Anglia explodes as peasant rebellion breaks out across the country. The yeoman Robert Kett leads a force of thousands in overthrowing the landlords and establishing a vast camp outside the walls of Norwich. Soon rebel commoners have taken over the city England's second largest. Barak throws in his lot with the rebels' Overton opposed to them becomes a prisoner in Norwich Castle; and government forces in London prepare to march north and destroy the rebels. Meanwhile Shardlake discovers that the murder of Edith Boleyn may have connections reaching into the heart of both the rebel camp and the Norwich gentry and he must decide where his ultimate loyalties lie.--