Reviews for An Excellent Mystery

The average rating for An Excellent Mystery based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-07-20 00:00:00 Jason Goodman Brother Cadfael is monk ensconced in the Monastery of St. Peter and St. Paul in Shrewsbury, England of the 13th century. He is a former crusader who has found his peace as a botanist and herbalist for these Brothers. Yet, from time to time a crime comes his way and he uses his knowledge and unique skills to help solve it. "Cadfael’s warrior blood, long since abjured, had a way of coming to the boil when he heard steel in the offing. His chief uneasiness was that he could not be truly penitent about it. His king was not of this world, but in this world he could not help having a preference." For those that have been following Brother Cadfael this tale falls right into place. The monastery in Shrewsbury is now on the margins of the battle between King Stephen and the Empress Maud to rule England. The opening of this mystery has another monk, Brother Humilis, (a recent refugee from the “troubles”) seeking refuge at the Monastery of St. Peter and St. Paul. When Cadfael is called in to help treat his illness they find that they also share experience in the Crusades. "They were grown quite easy together, these two, and if both of them realised that the mere healing of a broken and festered wound was no sufficient cure for what ailed Humilis, they were both courteously silent on the subject, and took their moderate pleasure in what good they had achieved." The author takes us down another path of carefully attentive historical aspects, nuanced ethical concerns and delightful descriptions of people and places. Here is an example: "They gathered the purple-black Lammas plums next day, for they were just on the right edge of ripeness. Some would be eaten at once, fresh as they were, some Brother Petrus would boil down into a preserve thick and dark as cakes of poppy-seed, and some would be laid out on racks in the drying house to wrinkle and crystallise into gummy sweetness." This one book of the series may be unique for not having a murder to drive the plot. Yet Peters finds ways to maintain the tension. "“I see what needs to be done, but how to achieve it, God knows, I cannot see. Well, God’s vision is clearer than mine, he may both see a way out of this tangle and open my eyes to it when the time is ripe. There’s a path through every forest, and a safe passage somewhere through every marsh, it needs only the finding.”" Well, to be clear, I enjoy Cadfael immensely. His life is grounded in practicality. His faith is in his actions. He has a strong sense of morality that challenges both himself and others. Because he only bowed to his religious calling after decades of adulthood, he sees the world as it is through his years of experience as a man of action both in war and with the opposite sex. As an author of historical fiction, Peters delights me. Not much more I can say.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-06-04 00:00:00 William Johnson It's fitting that the middle book of the Cadfael series is the most unique. It's the only book of the series in which no one is killed and the ubiquitous pair of young lovebirds is almost completely absent. Instead of a murder mystery, it's a story of passion, loyalty, justice, service, and devotion. The "excellent mystery" part doesn't kick in until a third to halfway through the book and isn't fully explained until the end. All of the characters are passionate about something, for good or ill, and some more obvious in their passion than others. It wasn't until a scene late in the book of Nicholas single-mindedly seeking Hugh in the pouring rain that I realized he was displaying just as much passion as poor Brother Urien, just about very different things. The final act of the book is very moving and also brilliantly constructed, bringing each character's tangled thread to a conclusion. Happy for some, bittersweet for others, but positive and hopeful all around. And adroitly avoiding a huge scandal, too. Besides, any time mischievous Sister Magdalen (introduced in book 5, The Leper of Saint Giles) is involved, I'm all in! The theme of passion is reflected in the historical events of the time. King Stephen and his cousin Empress Maud were fighting a heated civil war for the crown. The book is set in 1141 and readers are direct and indirect witnesses to the burning of Winchester and Wherwell, the siege and route of Winchester, the Empress's retreat from Queen Mathilda's armies, and the capture of Robert of Gloucester. Henry of Blois, Bishop of Winchester and papal legate, is mentioned often and appears in a brief scene with Nicholas.