Dark Fire by C.J. Sansom

Every time I finished a Matthew Shardlake book I'm like "I need to read more of this" but my TBR is making that very hard to do. Anyway, I decided to move this to the top of the list because I really, really wanted to read another one of the books after listening to the BBC radio adaptation of it.

The fire in Dark Fire refers to Greek Fire, which is this near weapon used by the Byzantine empire that could burn on water.

In this book, Lord Cromwell tasks Matthew Shardlake with discovering the formula to Greek Fire. In return, he gives Matthew a stay of execution for a girl that he's trying to defend. And while juggling two murder cases is not an easy feat for anyone, Matthew must do so knowing that if he fails, Cromwell falls (he doesn't like the guy but it's still going to make things worse for him).

Helping him for the first time is Barak, Cromwell's servant. I actually knew Barak as Matthew's assistant so it was a bit of a surprise to see them start on such rough footing. But the differences in their personalities made them an interesting pair and I liked seeing how their friendship (and how Barak stops judging Guy for being different) developed.

The mystery was fantastic and the historical setting even better. This may have been a really thick book, but I finished it faster than expected because each chapter was so short that I kept reading on.

I also thought the story was pretty well-balanced. Lord Cromwell's task is given precedence, but the other murder is investigated periodically, so I never felt like Matthew had forgotten about it.

If you're into historical mysteries, you need to pick up this series. If not now then yesterday because it is really good. I was actually not that enthused about the first book (although I loved the sixth, which was actually my introduction to the series), but I absolutely enjoyed this book and my expectations for the rest of the series just became higher.