A Morbid Taste for Bones • by Ellis Peters

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A Morbid Taste for Bones is the first volume in the 20-book Brother Cadfael medieval murder mystery series. We’ve read them all, twice, and they’re charmingly told stories. Ellis Peters* has an easygoing writing style, and it’s a pleasure to follow the gentle windings of the tale, and enter into Brother Cadfael’s thoughts and enterprises as he unmasks murderers, somehow always thereby helping true loves to overcome obstacles to their happiness.

the bones of an ancient saint lead to a murder mystery for Brother Cadfael to solve

The Prior of Shrewsbury Abbey in 12th-century Shropshire, England, wants the abbey to acquire a saint’s bones for the chapel there, so as to encourage pilgrimages and thus increase glory and earnings. When he can’t find a saint available locally, he travels to Wales to disinter Saint Winifred. Some of the locals are less than thrilled, and somebody ends up murdered. (Except for the murder, this plot thread is based on actual events.)

Brother Cadfael, the abbey’s herbalist, had gone along on the trip to Wales because he’s Welsh and speaks the language. Having since acquired a personal interest in the fates of a pair of young lovers impacted by the murder — and having a healthy sense of justice — he tracks down and ferrets out clues, deals with strange and alarming events, and perpetrates an act that could be considered sacrilege in order to bring events to a near-miraculous happy ending.

Here’s a sample of Ellis’s writing, which gives you an idea of the kinds of things that go on in this book:

Sioned stood beside her uncle, and looked all round her at the circle of her friends and neighbours, and unclasped the silver cross from her neck. She had so placed herself that Cadwallon and Peredur were close at her right hand, and it was simple and natural to turn towards them. Peredur had hung back throughout, never looking at her but when he was sure she was looking away, and when she swung round upon him suddenly he had no way of avoiding.

‘One last gift I want to give to my father. And I would like you, Peredur, to be the one to give it. You have been like a son to him. Will you lay this cross on his breast, where the murderer’s arrow pierced him? I want it to be buried with him. It is my farewell to him here, let it be yours, too.’

Peredur stood dumbstruck and aghast, staring from her still and challenging face to the little thing she held out to him, in front of so many witnesses, all of whom knew him, all of whom were known to him. She had spoken clearly, to be heard by all. Every eye was on him, and all recorded, though without understanding, the slow draining of blood from his face, and his horror-stricken stare. He could not refuse what she asked. He could not do it without touching the dead man, touching the very place where death had struck him.

A Morbid Taste for Bones is a good mix of lethal 12-century weapons and kisses, worldly passions and grand dramas against the fabric of a monk’s quiet faith and questioning. Cadfael saw a lot of the world as a soldier and adventurer before he settled down to being a monk, and his ways of approaching problems of justice and faith are savvy and rooted in deep experience, both clerical and secular.