INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL FICTION "If you cannot speak truth at a beheading, when can you speak it?" Hilary Mantel traces the final years of Thomas Cromwell, the boy from nowhere who climbs to the heights of power, offering a defining portrait of predator and prey, of a ferocious contest between present and past, between royal will and a common man's vision: of a modern nation making itself through conflict, passion and courage.