Henry VIII has proclaimed himself Supreme Head of the Church and the country is waking up to savage new laws, rigged trials and the greatest network of informers ever seen. Under the order of Thomas Cromwell, a team of commissioners is sent through the country to investigate the monasteries. There can only be one outcome: the monasteries are to be dissolved. But on the Sussex coast, at the monastery of Scarnsea, events have spiralled out of control. Cromwell's Commissioner Robin Singleton, has been found dead, his head severed from his body. His horrific murder is accompanied by equally sinister acts of sacrilege - a black cockerel sacrificed on the alter, and the disappearance of Scarnsea's Great Relic. Dr Matthew Shardlake, lawyer and long-time supporter of Reform, has been sent by Cromwell into this atmosphere of treachery and death. But Shardlake's investigation soon forces him to question everything he hears, and everything that he intrinsically believes ...

C.J.桑森（C.J.sansom）英國作傢，1952年齣生於蘇格蘭，自伯明翰大學畢業後獲文學學士與曆史博士學位，後從事律師工作。

《都鐸疑雲》這套曆史推理小說是他的代錶作，創作十餘年來銷量經久不衰，於全球售齣二十多國版權，發行量超200萬冊，並榮獲英國推理作傢協會頒發的曆史推理大奬“Ellis Peter曆史匕首奬”。