Thursday, December 21, 2006

Dark Fire and Happy Feet

I finished C J Sansom's Dark Fire last night. It's his second Matthew Shardlake mystery set in 1540 around the time of the fall of Thomas Cromwell.

It's not only a rivetting thriller, gloriously well written, but it's also based on a sound reading of the events surrounding the demise of the King's right hand man in reform. He has some interesting things to say about faith on the way through as well - which I'll leave you to find out for yourselves.

The family went to see Happy Feet last night - the eco cartoon about a dancing penguin. It's great fun! There are one or two plot gaps but the animation and characterisation are terrific and we all left the cinema wanting to adopt a penguin (it'll pass!)

2 comments:

Jonathan said...

Get a dog, fewer fishy smells in the house!

Wulf said...

I'll have to watch out for Sansom's books; having studied that period some time ago and being a keen reader of mysteries (albeit mainly in the more contemporary police / detective genres) I think I would enjoy them.

Have you read anything by Phil Rickman (specifically his Merrily Watkins series about an Anglican exorcist)?