Hilary Mantel · 2012 · thriller
Booker Prize 2012, and the tightest of the three - nine months from a summer progress in Wiltshire to a scaffold on Tower Green. Anne Boleyn has not produced a son, the King has noticed Jane Seymour, and Cromwell assembles a case against a queen out of gossip, jealousy and four men who once mocked a dead cardinal.
- 1Wolf Hall
September 1535, and the King's progress reaches the Seymours - hawking in the mornings, Jane Seymour at the table saying almost nothing, and Cromwell watching Henry watch her, which is where the second book starts.
- 2Austin Friars
Back to his own house and the machinery: informers, ledgers, letters intercepted and read, and a memory that never lets go of who laughed at Wolsey when Wolsey fell.
- 3Greenwich
The May Day joust, and the King rides off without a word to anybody - which is the moment the court understands that the Queen is finished and that whatever happens next has already been decided.
- 4The Tower
Interrogations in the Tower, four men condemned on evidence that would not now convict anybody, and a French swordsman sent for from Calais - and Anne Boleyn on the green in May 1536, with Cromwell standing where she can see him.