Hilary Mantel's dark masterpiece, charting the traslation of Thomas Cromwell from Putney blacksmith's son to brilliant and drangerous courtier in the court of Henry VIII. A literary page-turner and insightful, unsettling reflection on history and power, Wolf Hall is set at a time when Europe and, increasingly, England was in terrifying flux. We follow Cromwell from his childhood, through the rise of Anne Boleyn, to his decisive confrontation with Thomas Moore, as the two men use all their resources, intellectual and otherise, to guide the infantile and frightening Henry VIII to their chosen futures- Moore's scholarly Catholicism vs. Cromwell's revolutionary Protestantism. And, underlying all, is the tryanny of Henry VII's desire- a desire that may yet consume his court, his queen, England and the world. An extraordinary and utterly convincing book, Wolf Hall has all the beauty and intricacy of an illuminated manuscript- with just as bloody a history hidden behind the words.