Christopher John Sansom (9 December 1952 – 27 April 2024) was a British writer of historical crime novels, best known for his Matthew Shardlake series.
The series' main character is the hunchbacked lawyer Matthew Shardlake, who is assisted in his adventures by Mark Poer, then Jack Barak and also Nicholas Overton.
[6] After Dark Fire was published, a Sunday Times review commented: "Historical crime fiction is sometimes little more than a modern adventure in fancy dress.
Not so the novels of CJ Sansom, whose magnificent books set in the reign of Henry VIII bring to life the sounds and smells of Tudor England...".
[7] In the novel Tombland (published in 2018), Shardlake works as a lawyer in the service of Henry's younger daughter, Lady Elizabeth, investigating a murder during the time of Kett's Rebellion in Norfolk.
According to The Guardian, "Tombland is more of a grand historical epic than a tightly packed whodunnit, like some of the earlier novels; but 800 pages in Shardlake's company will always fly by".
About the latter novel, a Guardian review called the premise "an invented mid-20th century Britain that has the intricate detail and delineation of JRR Tolkien's Middle Earth, though thankfully described in better prose".