Back in the 1100s in Britain, sometimes people would retire to a monastery, giving their property to the church in exchange for food, clothing, housing and care for the rest of their lives. The Benedictine abbey in Shrewsbury has acquired such a resident in the person of Gervase Bonel and his wife, Richildis and two of their servants, Aelfric and Aldith. Gervase was a wealthy man and had agreed to give his estate to the abbey. Richildis has a teenage son from an earlier marriage, Edwin Gurney. She had married Gervase upon the promise that her son would inherit his estate. But after the marriage, Edwin and Gervase did not get along and in anger, Gervase disinherited Edwin. So there's two people who might want to see Gervase dead. Turns out, though, that there are more than those two who had a reason to be angry at Gervase. So it is not so surprising when Gervase ends up dying from poison placed in a dish of fowl meant just for him.
Enter Cadfael, resident monk amateur detective of the abbey. Because it was one of his medicinal concoctions that was used to murder Gervase. So naturally he has a strong interest in tracking down the killer. Plus Richildis is an old sweetheart of Brother Cadfael's back before he was a monk, thus making him a suspect, although an unlikely one, given Cadfael and Richildis are in their sixties. And haven't seen each other for more than forty years.
This was a pretty good mystery story. No politics or warring factions involved, which was nice. I figured out who the killer probably was and who the red herrings all were pretty quickly. Cadfael takes the law into his own hands in dealing with the killer, which I felt was not justified. That was disappointing.
Here is a review by Kirkus Reviews.
No comments:
Post a Comment