Bring Up the Bodies
The sequel to Wolf Hall, covering the fall of Anne Boleyn. Mantel won the Booker again in 2012, becoming the first woman and first British writer to win it twice. The novel is tighter and more lethal than its predecessor. Cromwell's maneuvering to bring down Anne reads like a thriller written by someone who has actually watched power operate at close range.
The “he, Cromwell” tag that fixed one problem becomes its own tic once you start noticing it. The first hundred pages take their time, and readers who know this history already find “the novel is static, lacking action and, fatally, predictable,” since “he’s on top and he stays on top.” Jane Seymour is “remote and pretty inscrutable,” barely given an inside. Anne is kept at “too much of a distance” by a viewpoint that never leaves Cromwell. Mantel’s refusal to rule on whether the case is real or built reads to some as principle and to others as the reason “there’s a coldness to it.”
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
