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A review by wouterk
A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters
3.0
This was an entertaining read. I bought this book looking for some nostalgic (re)read. When I was in my teens I once got a book from a library that was medieval murder mystery with some church people that I really really enjoyed. Talking about generic stuff, right? But while trying to find it, I found this series of short novels about Brother Cadfael. I'm still not sure, whether one of these stories is the book I read when I was still in school, but it sure replicated that feeling.
In this story Brother Cadfael goes to a Welsh village with to procure the remains of St Winifred after one of the Brothers has had a vision, much to the chagrin of the villagers. A murder mystery unfolds. Can't say much more as is usually the case with murder mysteries.
The mystery was interesting and nice, although some of the plot progression sometimes was caused by coincidence rather than the brilliance of our protagonist(s). Still, it was fun to follow and will read to see how the series evolves. I'm assuming that, having written so many books afterwards, the stories will still improve somewhat in tightness of the plot.
Having said that, Peters really stuck the landing in this first book in the series. I chuckled and at the same time feel that it has been shown very clearly what kind of person Brother Cadfael is.
In this story Brother Cadfael goes to a Welsh village with to procure the remains of St Winifred after one of the Brothers has had a vision, much to the chagrin of the villagers. A murder mystery unfolds. Can't say much more as is usually the case with murder mysteries.
The mystery was interesting and nice, although some of the plot progression sometimes was caused by coincidence rather than the brilliance of our protagonist(s). Still, it was fun to follow and will read to see how the series evolves. I'm assuming that, having written so many books afterwards, the stories will still improve somewhat in tightness of the plot.
Having said that, Peters really stuck the landing in this first book in the series. I chuckled and at the same time feel that it has been shown very clearly what kind of person Brother Cadfael is.