C.J. Sansom is a distinguished British author, well-known for his historical fiction and mystery novels. He was born in 1952 and pursued his higher education at the University of Birmingham, where he earned a BA and then a PhD in history. After working in various fields, Sansom decided to retrain as a solicitor and practiced law in Sussex for some time. It was only later that he turned to writing full-time.
Sansom has achieved significant success as a writer, particularly with his Matthew Shardlake series. The series is set in the reign of Henry VIII in the 16th century and features the hunchbacked lawyer Matthew Shardlake as the main character. Shardlake works on commission for prominent figures of the time, including Thomas Cromwell and Thomas Cranmer. The series has gained considerable popularity, and the BBC has commissioned an adaptation of the first book in the series, Dissolution, with Kenneth Branagh set to star as Shardlake.
In addition to the Shardlake series, Sansom has written several standalone novels, including Winter in Madrid and Dominion. Winter in Madrid is a thriller set in Spain in 1940, in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. Dark Fire, the second book in the Shardlake series, won the 2005 Ellis Peters Historical Dagger award, given by the Crime Writers' Association (CWA). Sansom himself was highly commended in the 2007 CWA Dagger in the Library award for the Shardlake series. He currently lives in Sussex and continues to write historical fiction and mystery novels.