Bring Up the Bodies
Hilary_Mantel

It's hard to find words to suggest just how good this book is. Colin Burrow does a good job in the London Review of Books:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n11/colin-burrow/on-your-way-phantom

It's a historical novel, but unlike any other I've read. It covers a well-worn area in English history, and the stories of a well-known group of characters, Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, Thomas Cromwell; a bunch of lesser-known actors, and a supporting cast of fictional characters. But what is fact, what is fiction? Where is the boundary between reality and imagination? Is there a clear boundary?  Look at the various portraits of Anne Boleyn: they don't look like the same woman. Was she an innocent victim of Henry's lust for an heir and her family's lust for power, or a cold-hearted adulteress scheming on her own account? Is it possible that she was both, or neither?

The months between September 1535 and May 1536, between Ann's last pregnancy and her execution, are seen through the eyes of the King's schemer-in-chief, Thomas Cromwell. He is the master of outcomes, the maker of events; but even he, or he most of all, cannot always tell fact from fiction. He is not always interested: he wants to weave a tapestry to suit the times. If "the facts change behind us" he will unmake it and weave a different one.

But Mantel's book shows how the shadow of the old pattern survives reweaving: how shadows people the past, haunt the present and possess the future. As Colin Burrow reminds us, Mantel excels in describing the things seen out of the corner of the eye (Beyond Black, for example). So at the end of Bring up the Bodies, Cromwell sees not only his present solid triumph, but the shadow of his end. More even than the minute description of Ann's execution, it is a terrifying end to an entirely believable novel. But what is it that we believe? Look at Holbein's portrait of Cromwell, read this book, draw your own conclusions, and draw your curtains tight. Shadows are everywhere.