#118 in Crime & mystery
Dissolution
- 400
- Pages
- about 7 h
- Reading time
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Our view
The Tudor setting of “Dissolution” is drawn with unusual care, and the mystery inside it holds up. The lawyer Matthew Shardlake investigates a murder among monks while the monasteries are being dissolved. Some readers find the tone too bleak to make them continue with the series. Readers consistently praise the period detail, and some the characters too.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
Dissolution (2003) is a historical mystery novel by British author C. J. Sansom. It is Sansom's first published novel, and the first in the Matthew Shardlake Series. It was dramatised by BBC Radio 4 in 2012.
Reading order · Shardlake series
Full order & progress →
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.9 across 130 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 47% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Crime & mystery average of 7.6. That is how 7.8 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.2 | 9 | 7% |
| Hardcover | 7.9 | 121 | 93% |
Frequently asked
How long is Dissolution?
It has 400 pages — shorter than 56% of the ranked books in Crime & mystery.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
The same shelf — Crime & mystery — and a score of 7.8, the closest to this book.
