Praise for DARK FIRE

‘Historical crime fiction is sometimes little more than a modern adventure in fancy dress. Not so the novels of C. J. Sansom, whose magnificent books set in the reign of Henry VIII bring to life the sounds and smells of Tudor England . . . Dark Fire is a creation of real brilliance, one of those rare pieces of crime fiction that deserves to be hailed as a novel in its own right’

Sunday Times

‘One of the author’s greatest gifts is the immediacy of his descriptions, for he writes about the past as if it were the living present’

Colin Dexter

‘I’ve discovered a new crime writer who’s going to be a star. He’s C. J. Sansom, whose just-published second novel, Dark Fire, is wonderful stuff, featuring a sort of Tudor Rebus who moves through the religious and political chaos of the 1540s with sinister élan’

James Naughtie, Herald

‘Sansom gives us a broad view of politics – Tudor housing to rival Rachman, Dickensian prisons, a sewage-glutted Thames, beggars in gutters, conspiracies at court and a political system predicated on birth not merit, intrigue not intelligence . . . a strong and intelligent novel’

Guardian

‘Spellbinding . . . Sansom’s vivid portrayal of squalid, stinking, bustling London; the city’s wealth and poverty; the brutality and righteousness of religious persecution; and the complexities of English law make this a suspenseful, colourful and compelling tale’

Publishers Weekly