The problem with this is that Jeremiah went to Egypt during the exile, but these poems seem to have been written by people who stayed in Judah. The early novels in the series, in which Shardlake acted on behalf of his patron Thomas Cromwell, painted a darker, more vindictive but no less valid portrait of Henry VIII’s chief minister than Hilary Mantel’s.

What has been instead proposed is that each of the book's chapters was written by a different anonymous poet, which were then joined to form the book. In the Christian Old Testament it follows the Book of Jeremiah, as the prophet Jeremiah is its traditional author.

Chapter 5 is a prayer that Zion's reproach may be taken away in the repentance and recovery of the people. Children begged food from their mothers (Lamentations 2:12), young men and women were cut down by swords (2:21), and formerly compassionate mothers used their children for food (4:10). I feel like the previous Shardlake novels have had an element of danger, but this book amplified the danger level immensely for our intrepid lawyer and his friends.

Yet it still takes more than half-an-hour for the spectacle to reach its grisly conclusion: “She began to shout something but then the flames reached the gunpowder bag and her head exploded, blood and bone and brains flying and falling, hissing, into the fire. The storyline is intricate enough to make one squint at times, but it's never contrived for the sake of cleverness or cheapened merely to lead the reader astray. It is forbidden to copy anything for publication elsewhere without written permission from the copyright holder. Lamentations, more than any other book in the Bible, captures what it really felt like to be someone from Judah at this point in history. Speaking in the first person, Jeremiah pictured himself captured in a besieged city, without anyone to hear his prayers, and as a target for the arrows of the enemy (3:7–8, 12).From its compelling opening through its stunning climax, Lamentation is deftly plotted, immensely readable and artfully executed. Everything works in Sansom's superb sixth Matthew Shardlake novel (after 2011's Heartstone): the murder mystery with grave political implications, the depiction of Tudor England, and the further development of a lead who's both courageous and flawed. Brodrick, himself a former Augustinian friar, is a master of precision plotting, morally complex characterization, and crisp historical re-creation.

He was an unconverted Glaswegian tamed by excessive education, but shades of the street fighter were apt to break out when grappling with the more unusual community problems. CJ Sansom's novel is brought to life by dramatist Colin MacDonald, director Bruce Young and an outstanding cast. endures from generation to generation" ( 5:19; see introductions to Ps 47; 93; see also note on Ps 102:12).

In the Church of England, readings are used at Morning and Evening Prayer on the Monday and Tuesday of Holy Week, and at Evening Prayer on Good Friday. Within a private courtyard at Whitehall Palace, Shardlake stumbles upon a sight that no commoner has been permitted to see: the morbidly obese king unable to walk unassisted, his legs “a mass of ulcers and swollen veins”, “a wreck of a human being who rots as he goes”.