Publisher's Synopsis
Summer, 1545, and England is preparing for war. Facing imminent invasion by the French fleet, King Henry VIII has mustered a huge army at Portsmouth. Though no soldier, Matthew Shardlake also finds himself dispatched there on a case. Shardlake also has another, more personal mission - to discover the truth about Ellen Fettiplace, a young woman he has befriended in Bedlam. She refuses to speak about the traumatic events that led to her incarceration almost twenty years ago, and Shardlake believes her family may hold the answers. As he and his assistant Jack Barak pursue their investigations, they uncover secrets, lies and sinister crimes. Events come to their dramatic climax on board the King's most famous warship: the Mary Rose...
