"As Henry VIII lies on his deathbed, an incendiary manuscript threatens to tear his court apart. Summer, 1546. King Henry VIII is slowly, painfully dying. His Protestant and Catholic councilors are engaged in a final and decisive power struggle; whoever wins will control the government. As heretics are hunted across London, and radical Protestants are burned at the stake, the Catholic party focuses its attack on Henry's sixth wife--and Matthew Shardlake's...

When a distant relative of Princess Elizabeth is found dead, Matthew Shardlake is sent to investigate the murder, which may have connections reaching to a peasant rebellion sweeping the country.

Defending a young religious zealot who is being held in the Bedlam hospital for the insane, Matthew Shardlake investigates a series of murders with ties to Lady Catherine Parr, a reform sympathizer and future wife of Henry VIII.