‘Hilary Mantel has a serious rival’ – Sunday Times

‘History never seemed so real’ – New York Times

Lamentation is the sixth breathtaking historical novel in C. J. Sansom’s number one bestselling Shardlake series, perfect for fans of Hilary Mantel and Philippa Gregory.

England, 1546. King Henry VIII is dying. Meanwhile, his Protestant and Catholic councillors are engaged in a final and decisive power struggle to control the government of Henry’s successor, eight-year-old Prince Edward. As heretics are hunted across London, the Catholic party focus their attack on Henry’s sixth wife, Matthew Shardlake’s old mentor, Queen Catherine Parr, and Shardlake is unexpectedly summoned to Whitehall Palace.

For the Queen has a secret. She has written a confessional book, Lamentation of a Sinner, so radically Protestant that if it came to the King’s attention it could bring both her and her sympathizers crashing down.

When the book inexplicably vanishes, and a single page is found clutched in the hand of a murdered printer, Shardlake must help the desperate Queen. His loyalty will drive him into a swirl of intrigue inside the palace, where Catholic enemies and Protestant friends can be equally dangerous, and the political opportunists, who will follow the wind wherever it blows, more dangerous than either . . .

Lamentation is the sixth novel in C. J. Sansom’s gripping historical series. Continue the series with book seven, Tombland.