DARK FIRE It is 1540, and Matthew Shardlake, the lawyer renowned as "the sharpest hunchback in the courts  of England," is pressed to help a friend™s young niece who is charged with murder. Despite  threats of torture and death by the rack, the girl is inexplicably silent. Shardlake is about to lose  her case when he is suddenly granted a reprieve”one that will ensnare him in the dangerous  schemes of Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII™s feared vicar-general.  In exchange for two more weeks to investigate the murder, Shardlake accepts Cromwell™s  dangerous assignment to find a lost cache of "dark fire," a legendary weapon of mass destruction.  Cromwell, out of favor since Henry™s disastrous marriage to Anne of Cleves, is relying on  Shardlake to save his position at court, which is rife with treasonous conspiracies. With its wonderful attention to period detail and its brilliant handling of suspense, Dark Fire  is sure to win comparisons with Margaret George™s Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles  and captivate readers of Philippa Gregory and David Liss.