Praise for SOVEREIGN

‘Don’t open this book if you have anything urgent pending. Its grip is so compulsive that, until you reach its final page, you’ll have to be almost physically prised away from it. The latest in C. J. Sansom’s increasingly thrilling series of sixteenth-century crime mysteries, it pulls you, like its predecessors, into a tortuous world of Tudor terror . . . Exceptionally gifted at recreating the look, sound and smell of the period, Sansom also excels at capturing its moral and intellectual climate . . . his remarkable talents really blaze out’

Peter Kemp, Sunday Times

‘Deeper, stronger and subtler than most novels in this genre (including Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose). The series is becoming an annual treat. The vigorous, well-drawn characters and their flawed moral intelligence are especially enjoyable, and a reminder of much that is lacking in current literary fiction . . . This gripping and engaging series seems ominously prescient about the present, as well as genuinely enlightening about the past’

Independent on Sunday

‘I was enthralled by Sovereign by C. J. Sansom, a novel combining detection with a brilliant description of Henry VIII’s spectacular Progress to the North and its terrifying aftermath’

P. D. James, Sunday Telegraph, ‘Books of the Year’

‘A fine setting for crime fiction and C. J. Sansom exploits it superbly . . . Never mind the crime: this is a terrific novel’

Times Literary Supplement

‘Deservedly popular . . . Between them, Sansom and Starkey have the sixteenth century licked’

Independent