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 retrained as a solicitor and practised in Sussex, until becoming a full-time writer. Following on from his remarkable debut, Dissolution, Dark Fire is the second novel in his Shardlake series. He has recently completed working on a novel set in post Civil War Spain, Winter in Madrid, and is now writing the third crime novel to feature Shardlake, entitled Sovereign. He lives in Sussex.