The Mirror and the Light - Longlisted for Booker Prize 2020If you cannot speak truth at a beheading, when can you speak it? England, May 1536. Anne Boleyn is dead, decapitated in the space of a heartbeat by a hired French executioner. As her remains are bundled into oblivion, Thomas Cromwell breakfasts with the victors. The blacksmiths son from Putney emerges from the springs bloodbath to continue his climb to power and wealth, while his formidable master, Henry VIII, settles to short lived happiness with his

As the conquerors and the conquered jockey for position in these new regimes

an exploration of what it is to be English

Innocent boys sentenced to die

not for love

Then TV producer Nikki Hardbody (Kids with Cancer and Pep: The Boy with No Nose) arrives to immortalise Michael in her latest documentary

one part Scheherazade' (Ann Patchett) and will appeal to fans of The Sisters Brothers or The Watchmaker of Filigree Street

transposed to the Greco-Roman world of antiquity

The tide shifts beneath the swell

Falco is dispatched by Vespasian on an undercover mission to Roman Gaul

one-time enemy of Byzantium

found at long last

With Gregory in tow Baxter sets out on a spirited escape from Melrose