Looking at the reviews here, it seems that this book is getting hammered because it cries out to be compared with other powerhouses of books.

Set in the 1500s of Henry VIII, it clearly bears parallels with Wolf Hall which is set two wives earlier. It has to be said that it lacks the beauty of the language of that novel or its subtle, multilayered realistic characterisation. Mantell's Cromwell is a far more engaging and convincing narrator than Sansom's Shardlake.

Similarly, set in an isolated monastery, narrated by an articulate first person narrator who is investigating a murder, comparisons with Name of the Rose are easy to make. I may be mistaken, but I wonder whether the reference to the (fake) lost Comedy of Aristotle in Scarnsea's library was a deliberate echo (or Eco?) of Name of the Rose.Again, however, Dissolution comes off worse in the comparison: it lacks the intensely almost arcanely intellectualism of Eco, who I love hugely; the language comes across as being broadly modern with the occasional nod towards the period whereas Eco's writing has always struck me an amazingly authentic.

This said, look at the writers with whom Sansom is being compared: I cannot think of any writer who would come off better in such a contest! It is the fact of the parallels that almost demand the comparisons to be made which is the problem, not the writing or the plotting itself. Sansom has so far succeeded in engaging and entertaining me, creating a universe which feels reasonably authentic. That seems to me to be worth a good 4 stars...