≡ Read Monk Hood Brother Cadfael Mysteries Ellis Peters 9780446403009 Books

Monk Hood Brother Cadfael Mysteries Ellis Peters 9780446403009 Books

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Monk Hood Brother Cadfael Mysteries Ellis Peters 9780446403009 Books

Outstanding book, but not quite finished!!! Outstanding topics!!!


Tags : Monk's Hood (Brother Cadfael Mysteries) [Ellis Peters] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. When a visitor to the abbey dies, Brother Cadfael faces a personal drama. For not only was the man poisoned by monk's hood oil,Ellis Peters,Monk's Hood (Brother Cadfael Mysteries),Mysterious Press,0446403008,Mystery & Detective - General,Fiction,Fiction - Mystery Detective,Fiction Mystery & Detective General,Mystery & Detective - Historical,Mystery & Detective - Series,Mystery & Detective - Traditional British,MysterySuspense

Monk Hood Brother Cadfael Mysteries Ellis Peters 9780446403009 Books Reviews

This was the first Cadfael book I've read - picked it up as a Deal at $1.99 - I liked it enough that I have already started at #1

It scratches a lot of itches for me - an interest in medieval history, an interest in medicine and natural remedies (and, as a professional chemist, their active ingredients and pharmacology), a fan of historical mysteries, and from my own familiarity w/ the Benedictine order as a student and for the week I spent in the monastery while I was in college to see what monastic life was like and whether it suited me.

People looking for a thriller will be disappointed, but there's so much else to like about the setting, characters, the plot, and more - in this particular case, I think the tension could have been strengthened with more suspicion of Cadfael himself - but that's just me - the connections he had with an old love, the workings of law as regards inheritance, the emphasis on Welsh language (which always ties my tongue in knots) and legal customs - it was all interesting and entertaining

I look forward to reading more!
As I write this review in August 2018, there are already over 100 reviews on . All but seven are four and five stars. The single one star review erroneously complains that Monk's Hood is the same book as St. Peter's Fair under a different title. One of the three star reviews says that the language is difficult to understand and recommends keeping a dictionary by your side as you read. If you really do have trouble with the language, read the book on a or similar device with built-in dictionary. I do not think that most will have any trouble with the words. The only things I recall looking up were some of the occupation titles in the monastery. They were mostly understandable in context but I am a curious sort and wanted to know exactly. This is not a difficult book to read. In fact this and the other Brother Cadfael mysteries are what I call fun books. Well researched, quick, easy reads and they always have a good, if unexpected ending.

It came to me after I had posted this review that I also looked up amerced. From context it obviously meant that the court was collecting money from
from those involved in a legal case. The dictionary in my stated that it was historical English to levy a fine. I did not really have to look it up to understand the passage in the novel. Nearly all of the odd and old words used by Ellis Peters are used in a way that at least the general meaning is decipherable from context.
I like reading midieval mysteries. I've read many others, most good, some bad. I knew of the Cadfael series through watching the PBS TV series. I truly enjoyed them ! I never bought the books because I thought they were too pricey. offered this book at a price I could NOT resist ! I enjoyed reading every moment of this. The characters are all well developed, the plot(s) held my interest thoughout the book ! The author does use some antiquitated words not found in my dictionery, but this presented no problems in discerning what she probably meant. Because of my eyes I only read books on my , where I can enlarge the type to my needs. If I did not have this impediment I would be devouring all of Ellis Peters books in hardback.
I enjoyed this one a lot. It unwinds quite a while. One note Read these books in order. The characters are introduced and continue from book to book.
This 12th century mystery series by Ellis Peters take place in a fog of civil war, where the English and Welsh were raiding each other’s borders and supporting one or another claimant to the English throne Empress Maud or King Stephen. In spite of the ongoing violence, the author suffuses her novels with a deep sense of peace and contentment in the monastic life. A monk from the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul at Shrewsbury, Brother Cadfael, the ex-Crusader-turned herbalist is her solver of murders and mysteries of the heart. Ellis weaves a rich tapestry of his daily life on the war-torn Welsh border.

This third novel in a series of 21 mysteries, "Monk's Hood," begins in December of 1138 when many of the aged monks are plagued by rheumatism and other cold weather ailments. Brother Cadfael is busy tending the sick with the harvest from his garden "..the eaves of his workshop in the garden were hung everywhere with linen bags of dried herbs, his jars of wine sat in plump, complacent rows, the shelves were thronging with bottles and pots of specifics for all the ills of winter, from snuffling colds to seized-up joints and sore and wheezing chests.”

One of his embrocations contains Monk's Hood, an herbaceous perennial which is poisonous if ingested, but eases the pain of arthritic limbs if used as a salve.

When Prior Robert shares his partridge dinner with a wealthy church client, and the old man dies, Brother Cadfael is quick to recognize the symptoms of Monk's Hood poisoning. Someone had secreted a portion of his salve in the cooked partridge!

There are numerous suspects, including Brother Cadfael himself, as the deceased man's widow was once Cadfael's fiancée before he took off on the First Crusade to Jerusalem. This is a complex whodunit and the reader will have to keep close track of many characters, including two boys, Edwin and Edwy, who are almost twins in appearance, but are actually uncle and nephew. The plot is also embedded in the inheritance laws of both England and Wales, which add another degree of complexity, but the author inserts the legal information so deftly--she uses an embroidery needle, not a sledge hammer---that the reader might not even notice how much he or she is learning about 12th century property law.
Outstanding book, but not quite finished!!! Outstanding topics!!!