I've finally finished this - I have to admit I found it a struggle to read. The opening was weak - mostly dialogue and explanation. I found the characterisation very bland - the only notable thing about Shardlake is his hunchback. At least Sansom wrote that into his story, but without that attribute the character would have been formless.
The same applies to most characters - they are defined only by physical attributes, and I never really got any sense of character from any of them. This made it especially difficult to differentiate any of the large number of monks enough to have much sense of what was going on, by whom, to what end.
It wasn't until halfway through that I began to even feel engaged, and that was simply because of the story from Brother Jerome which brought in some interesting moral relativism. Yet I never felt any resolution to any of the moral problems raised by Cromwell or the monks' actions - the story lifted itself up to ask political and social questions, then sank down to leave these unanswered to order to solve a basic crime.
If this had been written by a chronner I would have lauded it as a great effort, while wishing they had put the opening into crits so that it could have been polished up. The fact that it's trad printed yet left such a structurally weak opening just leaves me shaking my head at poor standards.
Possibly I came to it with too high expectations - but it felt like a very good self-published novel, rather than a very good traditional print novel. In that regard, I have to admit I found Ann Swinfen's opening book better -
The Chronicles of Christoval Alvarez by Ann Swinfen - though perhaps that's because her character takes us around more of Tudor England than Sansom's did, which allows the reader more room to breathe and enjoy something of the experience.
I'd probably rate
Dissolution at around 3 stars. Mostly competent, sometimes interesting, but I'm surprised it's a bestseller.
