Hilary Mantel's new novel brings Thomas Cromwell across the finish line

The Mirror and the Light is the triumphant capstone to Mantel's trilogy on Thomas Cromwell

How suitably some writers come named. Muriel Spark, of the scorching short fiction. Judy Blume, of stories of young girls coming of age. Ann Patchett, in whose work families desperately try to repair their tattered ties.

Then there is Hilary Mantel, the author of several books, including an acclaimed suite of novels set in Tudor England, in whose own name can be discerned her themes — of cloaking and secrecy, the weight of responsibility — and, as it happens, the particular pleasure of submitting to her lavish and gory imagination.

When a hawk makes a kill, it drapes its wings over its