Russell's ebook Library
1 - A Morbid Taste for Bones
Ellis Peters
Cadfael [1]: Murder in the twelfth century is no different from murder today. There is still a dead body, though this time with an arrow through the heart instead of a bullet. There is still a need to bury the dead, to comfort the living - and to cat...
2 - One Corpse Too Many
Ellis Peters
Cadfael [2]: In the summer of 1138, fighting engulfs Shrewsbury as King Stephen battles the Empress Maud for the throne of England. When Shrewsbury Castle falls, and its 94 defenders are hanged as traitors, Brother Cadfael is called upon to administe...
3 - Monk's Hood
Ellis Peters
Cadfael [3]: After the violence of spring, when the civil war between Stephen and Maud swept through the town, Shrewsbury has enjoyed a quiet summer. Now, at the beginning of autumn, all is peaceful - the harvest was good and the store cupboards are ...
4 - St. Peter's Fair
Ellis Peters
Cadfael [4]: Saint Peter's Fair is a grand festive event, attracting tradesmen from across England and beyond. There is a pause in the civil war racking the country in the summer of 1139, and the fair promises to bring some much needed gaiety to the ...
5 - The Leper of Saint Giles
Ellis Peters
Cadfael [5]: A marriage has been arranged, by greedy guardians, between an ageing nobleman and a very young woman. As both parties arrive in Shrewsbury for the ceremony there is a savage killing and Borther Cadfael is called upon to investigate. Outs...
6 - The Virgin in the Ice
Ellis Peters
Cadfael [6]: Winter, 1139, and Brother Cadfael's tranquil life at Shrewsbury monastery is once again interrupted by violent, mysterious happenings. As civil war rages close by, two orphans of a great family and their companion, a nun, disappear in th...
7 - The Sanctuary Sparrow
Ellis Peters
Cadfael [7]: A young man pursued by a lynching mob seeks sanctuary at the Benedictine monastery in Shrewsbury. He is accused of robbery and murder, but Cadfael senses his innocence and sets out to prove it.
8 - The Devil's Novice
Ellis Peters
Cadfael [8]: Outside the pale of the abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, in September of the year of our Lord 1140, a priestly emissary for King Stephen has been reported missing. But inside the pale, Brother Cadfael's attention is turned on Meriet,...
9 - Dead Man's Ransom
Ellis Peters
Cadfael [9]: It is 1141 and civil war continues to rage. The Sheriff of Shropshire and the king are taken prisoner by his enemies. An exchange of valuable prisoners is arranged, but before the exchange is completed, a murder takes place.
10 - The Pilgrim of Hate
Ellis Peters
Cadfael [10]: It's the spring of 1141 in Shrewsbury, England, where the celebration of Saint Winifred has brought a flood of pilgrims - and possibly a murderer. Brother Cadfael, who has taken religious vows and retired to the quiet, contemplative lif...
11 - An Excellent Mystery
Ellis Peters
Cadfael [11]: In 1141 England is still torn by the civil strife caused by the struggle for the throne between king Stephen and empress Maud. Among the victims of the carnage is the abbey of Hyde mead, totally destroyed. Its brothers are scattered far...
12 - The Raven in the Foregate
Ellis Peters
Cadfael [12]: Christmas, 1141 AD. A priest arrives from London to fill the vacant living of Holy Cross (the Foregate) - a man of presence, scholarship and discipline, but one who lacks the common touch. When he is found drowned in the mill-pond, susp...
13 - The Rose Rent
Ellis Peters
Cadfael [13]: Judith Perle, a young widow who had greatly loved her husband, has conveyed one of her properties to the Abbey of Shrewsbury in return for the annual rent of one white rose from the bush growing on the property's north wall. A few years...
14 - The Hermit of Eyton Forest
Ellis Peters
Cadfael [14]: 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 upheava...
15 - The Confession of Brother Haluin
Ellis Peters
Cadfael [15]: In the winter of 1142, snow blankets the Bendictine Abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul causing damage to the guest hall, and the brothers must repair its roof before the danger worsens. The treacherously icy conditions are to prove nig...
16 - The Heretic's Apprentice
Ellis Peters
Cadfael [16]: In the summer of 1143, William of Lythwood returns to Shrewsbury in a coffin... his pilgrimage at last at an end. William's young attendant, Elave, accompanies the body and sets about trying to secure a burial place on the grounds of th...
17 - The Potter's Field
Ellis Peters
Cadfael [17]: The body of a woman is unearthed in the freshly plowed fields that once belonged to a local potter — now a Benedictine monk. The woman is revealed to be his beautiful young wife, thought to have run away. Medieval Benedictine monk Broth...
18 - The Summer of the Danes
Ellis Peters
Cadfael [18]: In the summer of 1144, a strange calm has settled over England. The armies of King Stephen and Empress Maud, the two royal cousins contending for the throne, have temporarily exhausted each other. On the whole, Brother Cadfael considers...
19 - The Holy Thief
Ellis Peters
Cadfael [19]: At the height of the hot summer of 1144, a lucky hit by one of King Stephen's archers rids the Fen country of Geoffrey de Mandeville, Earl of Essex, who has amassed his castles and gold by robbing rich and poor alike. Thus, the Benedict...
20 - Brother Cadfael's Penance
Ellis Peters
Cadfael [20]: The cloistered walls of Shrewsbury Abbey have always protected Brother Cadfael from the raging Civil War. But when fighting escalates between Empress Maud and King Stephen, the war takes a deadly step closer to him. Taken prisoner in th...
21 - A Rare Benedictine
Ellis Peters
Cadfael [21]: ‘Brother Cadfael sprang to life suddenly and unexpectedly when he was already approaching sixty, mature, experienced, fully armed and seventeen years tonsures.’ So wrote Ellis Peters in her introduction to A RARE BENEDICTINE – three vin...
