Nancy Pearl, NPR, says, “C.J. Sansom’s Dissolution is the first in a series of historical mysteries set in Tudor England during the reign of Henry VIII. In 1537, England has been sundered in two by religion: There are those who have gone along with Henry’s decision to dissolve the monasteries and institute the Church of England, and those who are still loyal to the Catholic Church, overseen by the pope in Rome. The main character of this series is a hunchbacked lawyer named Matthew Shardlake. He is one of the reformers, as the followers of the king’s new religion are called. His fellow reformer (and Henry’s loyal servant), Thomas Cromwell, asks (or rather, orders) Matthew to undertake an investigation into the death of a royal commissioner that occurred in a monastery scheduled to be destroyed, located on the south coast of England.”