The Shardlake series is a series of historical mystery novels by C. J. Sansom set in the reign of Henry VIII in the 16th century.
The series' main character is the hunchbacked lawyer Matthew Shardlake, who is assisted in his adventures by Mark Poer and then Jack Barak. Shardlake works on commission initially from Thomas Cromwell in Dissolution and Dark Fire, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer in Sovereign and Revelation and Queen Catherine Parr in Heartstone and Lamentation.
Sansom has said that he plans to write further Shardlake novels taking the lawyer into the reign of Elizabeth I.
In 2007 the BBC commissioned an adaptation of Dissolution with Kenneth Branagh set to star as Shardlake. Branagh chose instead to become Kurt Wallander for the BBC series Wallander.
In 2012 BBC Radio 4 adapted Dissolution into a 10-part radio serial, adapted by Colin MacDonald, with Jason Watkins as Shardlake and Mark Bonnar as Cromwell. BBC Radio 4 went on to broadcast Dark Fire in 2014 and Sovereign in 2015, also adapted by Colin MacDonald as 10-part serials.