As soon as I started
reading A Morbid
Taste for Bones, a novel I found at Abids during my previous visit, I knew this would happen … it happened more sooner
that even I anticipated … A Morbid Taste for Bones, I discovered, to my great joy and pleasure, is the
first in the series of Brother Cadfael mystery novels by Ellis Peters (the
pseudonym of Edith Mary Pargeter) … set in 12th century England,
these novels are historical murder mysteries, proudly calling themselves
‘Mediaeval whodunits’ … another name I came across for this genre is
‘mystoricals’ and Ellis Peters is said to have revived interest among readers
and writers in the ‘historical mystery’ novel …
The ‘detective,’ if one
may call him so, in these Mediaeval whodunits is Brother Cadfael … a man of
many talents and skills which he acquired when he was a soldier and sailor
before deciding to don the robes in his forties by entering the Benedictine Abbey
at Shrewsbury … he is also a talented herbalist, apart from being a skilled observer
of human nature … and so, Brother Cadfael is consulted as a doctor, detective,
becomes a diplomat, spokesperson, and so on …
A Morbid Taste for Bones sets the stage for a display of
Brother Cadfael’s many talents … the reader sees him as a diplomat soothing
ruffled feathers, a detective who uses his observational skills and medical
knowledge to solve a murder, his knowledge of weapons also comes into use … all
in all it was a very satisfying read and I enjoyed it … and I wanted more … mmm
… not surprising …
I did what I always did when caught in this kind
of situation … I went to my online secondhand book sources and wanted to see
what was available … I thought there’d only be a few of these medieval
whodunits … ha ha ha … tough luck and a big test of my self-control … I located
the mother lode, sort of … except for a couple of them, I found the rest of the
series of 20 novels … and priced well …
but this time, I exercised self-control big time and wanted to go
step-by-step … and bought only three novels … numbers two, three, and four in
the series … and look at the covers …
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