Title: Dark Fire
Author: C.J. Sansom
Rating: 
4 stars out of 5
Publisher: Penguin
Copyright: 2004
ISBN: 0143036432
Pages: 503
Keywords: historical mystery
Reading period: 18-19 February, 2007
Dark Fire is set in the summer of 1540,
a few years after Henry VIII established himself
as the head of the Church of England.
Matthew Shardlake is a London lawyer,
who takes on a case defending a young woman
against the charge of murdering her 12-year-old cousin.
She refuses to speak and will be "pressed" by heavy weights
until she enters a plea—or dies.
In exchange for a temporary reprieve,
Shardlake agrees to take on an investigation
for his sometime patron, Thomas Cromwell,
Henry's first minister.
An alchemist claims to have discovered the secret
of Greek fire, a terrible napalm-like weapon once used
in the Byzantine empire.
Shardlake has twelve days to find the cache of dark fire.
Sansom recreates Reformation London,
seamlessly blending together a stew of religion, politics, and
skullduggery, in a very entertaining mix.