C.J. Sansom was educated at Birmingham University, where he took a BA and then a Ph.D. in history. After working in a variety of jobs, he decided to retrain as a solicitor and practised in Sussex, where he still lives. He came to prominence with his Shardlake series set in the reign of Henry VIII in the 16th century. Every one of C.J. Sansom’s books has been a bestseller in the UK, and he’s just as successful abroad: REVELATION and SOVEREIGN were German bestsellers, and his stand-alone thriller WINTER IN MADRID is a bestseller in the Netherlands, Spain and Norway.
He has twice been shortlisted and once awarded the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger Award by the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA). Sansom himself was “Very Highly Commended” in the 2007 CWA Dagger in the Library award for the Shardlake series and was recently selected by Waterstone’s as one of their 25 ‘authors for the future’. Kenneth Branagh is behind the current development of the Shardlake series as a primetime BBC dramatization.
It is 1940. The Spanish Civil War is over, and Madrid lies ruined, its people starving, while the Germans continue their relentless march through Europe. And as Britain stands alone, General Franco considers whether to abandon neutrality and enter the war. Into this uncertain world comes Harry Brett, ex-public schoolboy, traumatised veteran of Dunkirk and, now, reluctant spy for the British Secret Service. Sent to gain the confidence of Sandy Forsyth, an old schoolfriend turned shady Madrid businessman, he finds himself involved in a dangerous game – and surrounded by memories. Meanwhile Sandy’s girlfriend, ex-Red Cross nurse Barbara Clare, is engaged on a secret mission of her own – to find her former lover Bernie Piper, whose passion for the Communist cause led him into the International Brigades, and who vanished on the bloody battlefields of the Jarama.