It is England in the year 1537, and Thomas Cromwell is Henry VIII's vicar-general and in the process of dissolving all of the large monastic houses, granting the land to his favorites or the highest bidders. When one of his commissioners is murdered at the monastery in Scarnsea, Cromwell sends the hunchback lawyer Matthew Shardlake and Mark, his young assistant, to solve the mystery. They find that not only has the murder been covered up but also...

It is 1952. Twelve years have passed since Churchill lost to the appeasers and Britain surrendered to Nazi Germany. The global economy strains against the weight of the long German war against Russia still raging in the east. The British people find themselves under increasingly authoritarian rule. But Churchill's Resistance soldiers on. As defiance grows, whispers circulate of a secret that could forever alter the balance of the global struggle....

When a distant relative of Princess Elizabeth is found dead, Matthew Shardlake is sent to investigate the murder, which may have connections reaching to a peasant rebellion sweeping the country.

"As Henry VIII lies on his deathbed, an incendiary manuscript threatens to tear his court apart. Summer, 1546. King Henry VIII is slowly, painfully dying. His Protestant and Catholic councilors are engaged in a final and decisive power struggle; whoever wins will control the government. As heretics are hunted across London, and radical Protestants are burned at the stake, the Catholic party focuses its attack on Henry's sixth wife--and Matthew Shardlake's...