A Morbid Taste for Bones: 1 (Chronicles of Brother Cadfael)

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I really enjoyed this. Peters spins a good yarn and the mystery is a good one rife with unspoken passions and misguided devotion. I sincerely enjoyed trying to work out who was behind what and hoping everything would work out in the end for all the good guys. James, M R (1928). Ford, David Nash Ford (ed.). "Shrewsbury Abbey, Norman Church Half Survives". Abbeys. Archived from the original on 8 November 2014 . Retrieved 20 October 2013. Robert, Prior of Shrewsbury (2000). Robert Pennant's Life of St Winefride / translated by Ronald E Pepin. Toronto: Peregrina Publishing Co. ISBN 978-0-920669-60-0. OCLC 47291339. {{ cite book}}: |work= ignored ( help) The smell of wood-smoke drifted on the air, and glimmer of torches lit the open doorway of the hall. Stables and barns and folds clung to the inner side of the fence, and men and women moved briskly about the evening business of a considerable household. Cadfael needed a quiet place to retire. He had sown wild oats and he had been a warrior for half of his life, soldering for Christian King and Country in the Holy Land. Before that, he worked for a merchant and learned about money (such as there was in the twelfth century). However, when his crusading was done and he once again was on English soil, a chance meeting with an abbot set him on course to become a Benedictine monk after retiring from military service.

Angold, M J; G C Baugh; Marjorie M Chibnall; D C Cox; Revd D T W Price; Margaret Tomlinson; B S Trinder (1973). Gaydon, A T; Pugh, R B (eds.). "Houses of Benedictine monks: Abbey of Shrewsbury". A History of the County of Shropshire: Volume 2. pp.30–37 . Retrieved 27 September 2012. The abbey had had a special devotion for St Winifred from the time that her relics were brought from Basingwerk, c. 1138, and placed in the church. However, upon arrival, they are greeted with some opposition. But things really take a sinister turn, when the main protestor is found murdered. It is now up to Brother Cadfael to root out the killer and the true motive behind the murder. Brother Cadfael has two novices assisting him in his herb and vegetable gardens: John (practical, down-to-earth, whose vocation Cadfael doubts) and the ambitious Columbanus (of whose illness Cadfael is sceptical, although he treats him with sedating poppy syrup). Columbanus and Brother Jerome, Robert's clerk, go to Saint Winifred's Well in North Wales for a cure. When they return Columbanus says Saint Winifred appeared to him, saying that her grave at Gwytherin was neglected; she wished to lie somewhere more accessible to pilgrims. Abbot Heribert approves the trip to Wales to retrieve Winifred's remains. Robert, Sub-Prior Richard, Jerome and Columbanus are joined by Cadfael (fluent in Welsh) and John (for menial work). Cadfael's "syrup of poppies" is perhaps an early reintroduction of the medicinal use of poppies to England. He presumably learned its use and effects in the Holy Land, quite possibly from the Saracens. It is useful to Cadfael throughout the series of books, for dulling pain and calming those in distress, and to other characters for stupefying guards, witnesses and rivals. [13] [14] I must admit though, I had a hard time getting through it. In fact, I pretty much had to sit myself down and force myself to read through to the end. I’ve decided that has much more to do with me than the book itself (consequently my high rating). The truth is, I just don’t like mysteries, and now I know that even by setting the mystery in a fascinating time period, this doesn’t change. When I was younger, I used to read every Agatha Christi ‘Poirot’ story I could get my hands on, and I think I burned myself out. Most of the time I just don’t care about ‘whodunit’. This leaves the magnetism of the detective to carry the story, which recently just hasn’t been enough.A Morbid Taste For Bones was the first of Cadfael stories to be adapted for radio. It was adapted by Alice Rowe and broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 29 November 1980. Ray Smith starred as Brother Cadfael and Steven Pacey played Brother John. [27] A Morbid Taste for Bones is a medieval mystery novel by Ellis Peters set in May 1137. It is the first novel in The Cadfael Chronicles, first published in 1977. The television episode makes some changes, including secondary characters and proper names. Brother John and Annest are not included, leaving only one set of young lovers for the viewer to follow. The tension between the Welsh villagers and the English monastics is played up considerably, and the acquisition of Saint Winifred is made more dangerous thereby. To that end, the naive and charming Father Huw is recharacterised as the suspicious and rather grubby Father Ianto, who opposes the saint's removal and castigates the monks for haggling over her bones as if she were a bone at a butcher's stall. Bened the smith, while retaining his name, also loses much of his openhearted good nature, being both a suspicious rival of Rhisiart's and a vehement accuser of the monks themselves. Brother John: Young and strong monk in service under Brother Cadfael. He is of a practical and direct nature, and a good sense of humour. He has curly reddish brown hair. He took his vows less than a year earlier. Brother Cadfael suspects John does not have a true vocation and would do better out in the world; he had joined the monastery when rejected as a suitor by a girl in England (an event about which he tells Annest in English when she could not yet understand English). John falls in love with Annest in Wales, showing Cadfael's perception to be true.

The monks of Shrewsbury Abbey seek the relics of a saint in Wales for their chapel. The locals object to this translation of the relics, and a local leader is found murdered. Brother Cadfael is challenged to uncover the truth of the murder and help bring right endings to all parties, in both Wales and in the Abbey.Russian – Страсти по мощам Strasti po moshcham [ Passion for Relics], Sankt-Peterburg: Amfora, 2005 ISBN 5-94278-799-9, ISBN 978-5-94278-799-8 (includes A Morbid Taste for Bones (odin lishnii trup) Also published by Azbuka, 1995. [25] These books are super short, but this first installment seemed to move at a very slow pace. Although the premise is interesting, the story didn’t really draw me in until the last quarter of the book. I also struggled a bit with the sentence structuring at times, unsure if it was meant to read that way or if there was a formatting issue.

As the story begins Prior Robert, an ambitious monk, has convinced their Abbot that he should be allowed to travel to Whales and retrieve the bones of a Saint interred there so she may be housed in glory at the Abbey. Robert and his supporters make a lot of noise about visions of the saint telling them she wants to be moved to Shrewsbury and the kindly, but not terribly shrewd abbot grants permission. Cadfael, sensing something amiss and not liking the notion of disinterring a saint from the land she loved, worms his way into the group and they set out. Welsh village society (as in Gwytherin) and the terms of customary service are described. Foreigners ( alltudau, or exiles) such as Engelard, with no place in the community guaranteed by family ties, may enter a form of indentured servitude. Unlike villeinage as in England, this may be terminated by the servant dividing his chattels with the master who gave him the opportunity of owning them. This and one other novel by Ellis Peters were tied for No. 42 in the 1990 list of The Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time by the Crime Writers Association. (The other novel is The Leper of Saint Giles, the fifth novel in The Cadfael Chronicles ( 1981).) In the UK this was published as Hatchard's Crime Companion, edited by Susan Moody. [16] [17] This novel is also on the top 100 list compiled in 1995 by the Mystery Writers of America. [18] When the monks from the abbey arrive at Gwytherin, they discover that a local clergyman, Father Huw, will not allow the removal of the remains until he receives the approval of the free men of the church. The most influential landowner within the parish, Rhisiart, does not support the removal of the artifacts. Rhisiart leaves when Prior Robert offers him a bribe. With Father Huw’s support, Prior Robert requests another audience with Rhisiart, who agrees to take the meeting. At the time of the meeting, however, Rhisiart does not appear. Eventually, his body is found in the woods, his chest pierced, bearing the mark of Engelard, an Englishman who is in love with Rhisiart’s daughter, Sioned.Abbot Heribert approves a trip to Wales to locate, remove, and relocate Saint Winifred’s remains. A party from the abbey including Prior Robert, Sub-Prior Richard, Brother Jerome, Columbanus, John, and Brother Cadfael leaves to retrieve the saint’s remains. The quest for the saintly bones is the reason for the trip, but the ongoing friction in the community about which lovely girl is going to marry whom begins to take precedence in the book, to the point that Cadfael finds himself wanting to take sides. One young monk is clearly distracted, and when a major landholder, father of one of the girls, is found murdered, the story gets more interesting. urn:lcp:morbidtasteforbo00pete:epub:2015ff34-b395-4a33-8eb0-4c5fb1cb914e Extramarc The Indiana University Catalog Foldoutcount 0 Identifier morbidtasteforbo00pete Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t2z32qh5n Isbn 0446400157 To Say Nothing To Say About The Dog. by Connie Willis. This book is much slower in pace, but has also great writing and fun.