Oh hello my fellow Shardlake enthusiasts! 
Well, now that I have found you, can I say what is really bursting to get out of me?
C J Sansom - how could you do that to Jack? I always assumed you had some of the personality of Shardlake - compassion, a gentleness of spirit, a fondness for the fellowship of mankind - and yet you can do that to Jack? 
I am not sure I will be able to forgive you!
I have read online the suggestion that Sansom was bored with the character and couldn't think of what else to do with him and so has 'pensioned him off'. I sincerely hope that isn't the case as Shardlake has only been kept alive for me by Jack Barak. I was most disappointed he didn't really get much of a role in Lamentation - and I too have forgotten most of Heartstone but I have a feeling I was not happy with his part in that novel either. Actually, I think he might still have plans for Jack. He has Shardlake thinking at the end of Lamentation about his responsibilities towards Timothy, Nicholas and 'yes, Barak' and he has Jack telling Shardlake that he is 'working on Tammy' so I suppose that suggests he (Sansom) intends to continue with the character. But I am heartbroken that he will never again be quite the man he was.
If Sansom is anything like Shardlake, does this extend to being unlucky in love? Is Sansom jealous of Jack for seeming to have everything in life?
OK, passionate rant over! That aside, I am not sure I enjoyed Lamentation all that much, and I know I didn't enjoy Heartstone as much as previous books. Has Sansom run out of ideas, do you think? I have read that he wants to take Shardlake on into the Elizabethan era, but I am wondering if he has run out of good mysteries to develop. The political and religious plots can only go so far in my opinion as they are all laid out as historical facts already (ie, we all knew the Queen would survive the jeopardy of her book being stolen as she did in real life) so, for me, it is the fictional aspects that have made up the plots in the past that have interested me.