Publisher Description

The year is 1142, and all England is in the iron grip of a civil war. And within the sheltered cloisters of the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, there begins a chain of events no less momentous than the political upheavals of the outside world. First, there is the sad demise of Richard Ludel, Lord of Eyton, whose ten year old son and heir, also named Richard, is a pupil at the Abbey. Supported by the Abbot Radulfus, the boy refuses to surrender his new powers to Dionysia, his furious, formidable grandmother. A stranger to the region is the hermit Cuthred, who enjoys the protection of Lady Dionysia, and whose young companion Hycacinth, befriends Richard. Despite his reputation for holiness, Cuthred's arrival heralds a series of mishaps for the monks. When Richard disappears and a corspe is found in Eyton forest, Brother Cadfael is once more forced to leave the tranquility of his herb garden and devote his knowledge of human nature to tracking down a ruthless murderer.

Notes

In his fourteenth chronicle Brother Cadfael's tranquil life as a herbalist is disturbed by the arrival of a saintly hermit and the disappearance of a young boy.

Author Biography

Ellis Peters is one of the pseudonyms of Edith Pargeter who wrote several books under her own name and also Peter Benedict, Jolyon Carr and John Redfern. She was the recipient of the Crime Writers Association and the Cartier Diamond Dagger Award. She died in 1995

Review

'Charmingly and humourously told.' TLS

Kirkus US Review

Another in the ever-fascinating Brother Cadfael chronicles (The Rose Rent, etc.). taking the reader back to 12th-century England, where Cadfael's Benedictine Abbey in Shrewsbury is relatively untouched by the country's civil war. There's a different war being waged there, however, after the death of Richard Ludel, Lord of Eaton. His ten-year-old son and heir Richard, placed in the cave of Abbot Radulfus years before, has been kidnapped from the Abbey by his imperious grandmother Dionisia in a scheme to marry him to Hiltrude, daughter of neighboring landowner Fulke Astley, and thus to magnify the holdings of both. Stalwart, clever Richard was entrapped by his own good will towards Hyacinth, a runaway serf, object of a vindictive manhunt by brutal Drogo Bosiet and his son Aymer. Now Hyacinth, acting as servant to hermit and self-designated holy man Cuthred, is forced to hide, with help from new-found love Annet. And when Bosiet pete is found stabbed to death in the forest, the hunt is truly on - not only for his killer but for the missing Richard. Cadfael teams with Sheriff Hugh Beringar, as he has many times before, to solve those puzzles, a second murder, the mystery of an older, never-solved crime, and the part played in all of it by reticent Abbey visitor Rafe De Genville. Swift-moving, intricate plotting, richly tapestried background, and unpretentious but literate style in the telling once again work their magic as Peters continues to en-thrall. (Kirkus Reviews)

Long Description

The year is 1142, and all England is in the iron grip of a civil war. And within the sheltered cloisters of the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, there begins a chain of events no less momentous than the political upheavals of the outside world. First, there is the sad demise of Richard Ludel, Lord of Eyton, whose ten year old son and heir, also named Richard, is a pupil at the Abbey. Supported by the Abbot Radulfus, the boy refuses to surrender his new powers to Dionysia, his furious, formidable grandmother. A stranger to the region is the hermit Cuthred, who enjoys the protection of Lady Dionysia, and whose young companion Hycacinth, befriends Richard. Despite his reputation for holiness, Cuthred's arrival heralds a series of mishaps for the monks. When Richard disappears and a corspe is found in Eyton forest, Brother Cadfael is once more forced to leave the tranquility of his herb garden and devote his knowledge of human nature to tracking down a ruthless murderer.

Review Quote

Charmingly and humourously told. - TLS

Promotional "Headline"

In his fourteenth chronicle Brother Cadfael's tranquil life as a herbalist is disturbed by the arrival of a saintly hermit and the disappearance of a young boy.

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