Read about this novel months ago. For some reason, it just popped in my head this morning, even though the reviews (I think one was in The New York Times) didn't sell it well. Memory is so weird.
Monday, November 13, 2023
Sunday, November 12, 2023
Saturday, November 4, 2023
A MORBID TASTE OF BONES by Ellis Peters
Reserved at library because it's in Molly Young's Read Like the Wind newsletter:
“A Morbid Taste for Bones,” by Ellis Peters |
Fiction, 1977 |
|
The place: Shrewsbury Abbey. The time: late spring of the year 1137. The person: Brother Cadfael, a monk with a torrid past, a penchant for herb-gardening and a knack for solving crimes. |
This is the first book in a once wildly popular series that follows the adventures of a shrewd yet pious amateur sleuth. As plotlines go, the one driving this novel is almost comically boring in summary, so I’ll cover the basics quickly; you’ll just have to trust me on its spine-tingling potential: |
A chief administrative monk becomes upset that his abbey doesn’t have any cool relics or miracle-working saints that he can leverage to draw visitors. (The abbey lacks an “It factor,” you could say.) Soon the greedy monk discovers the existence of a neglected martyr in a faraway town and — thinking, “I can work with this” — sends a crew of flunkies to fetch the martyr’s body and claim it for their own. Brother Cadfael, having a bad feeling about the whole business, gets himself conscripted for the journey and thus finds himself on the scene when a dead body shows up! His holy mission, which he indeed chooses to accept, is to puzzle out whodunnit. |
Read if you like: Porridge, cozy (or “cosy”) mysteries, herbaria, the British television series “Prime Suspect” starring Helen Mirren, wholesome funAvailable from: Also currently free to borrow from the Internet Archive — and check bargain bins and libraries near you. (Or eBay.) |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)