Books

I enjoyed C J Sansom's Winter in Madrid so much that when I visited our local library again last week I looked for the other two books he has written. There was just one of them on the shelf - Dark Fire. This is a 'who dun it' set in London in 1540 and is the second in what the publishers describe as 'the Shardlake series', although I would think that two hardly constitute a series. That, though, is splitting hairs.

It would probably have been better to have read the previous book, Dissolution, before this one as there were a good few references to events in the earlier title, but I thoroughly enjoyed it anyway. There is no resemblance to Madrid, but this book is equally well-written.

Having finished that, I am now reading P D James' latest, The Private Patient. Reading her books I can readily believe that she weighs not just every sentence, but every word she writes. I find it astonishing that at 89 she is still writing. Long may she continue to do so.

I've just checked out C J Sansom and it seems that there are actually four titles in the Shardlake series now. I must try to get hold of the three I haven't read.