£1 from my favourite charity shop.

Taken out of Fellraven's British Mysteries, Crime and Thriller Bookbox.Looks just my kind of book.

I really enjoyed this, I can't believe that I've not discovered this series before! Thanks Fellraven for the introduction, I'll be no the lookout for more by this author.


This is going into my Historical Murder/Mystery Book Box.

Taken out of the Historical Murder/Mystery bookbox.

Young man with plague comes to abbey for medical assistance, gets bashed on head. A medieval murder mystery in the Cadfael tradition, though not nearly so convincing as Peters' work. I never quite felt that Clare had really got into the medieval mindset. There was nothing that I could put my finger on as being factually wrong (though I have serious doubts about monks and nuns living practically together under the rule of an Abbess, but I'm willing to be corrected on that), and it seems excessively nitpicky to criticise the modern use of modern words ('preview'; 'coma', etc) when nobody would be speaking English as we know it anyway, but it just didn't gel.

Another, more personal (by which I mean that other readers may not care at all), issue was the mixing of genres, or, rather, the way that the supernatural is unquestioningly accepted by the omniscient narrator. This was something I always thought Peters did rather well, finding room for faith and doubt to dwell together, without denigrating the one or demolishing the other. While the supernatural plot doesn't have much to do with the mystery, it sat ill with me.

The mystery itself was reasonably interesting, though the reader was never allowed to do any work.

Sending to the winner of the Mystery and Tea sweepstake. Enjoy!

The book and the tea arrived safely in Helsinki today. Thanks a lot for sending them to Finland! Will be nice to read another medieval mystery after all the Cadfael books that have been passing through our house...

this was a nice mediaval mystery, but I somehow missed the person of brother Cadfael in the story. Josse is not a bad substitute, but the complex parts of his life and the people playing a role in it make the story a bit strange.
But a nice read on dark autumn days to keep your mind off other things ;)
Thanks for sharing!