Reading in Reykjavík

Genre : Historical mystery. Themes : Deception, escape, forced marriage, murder. Reading challenge : What's in a Name , the book with a profession in the title, and my final book for this challenge. I was planning to read a piece of social history, What the Butler Saw: Two hundred and fifty years of the servant problem , for this challenge, but looking over my bookshelves I spotted the 8 books I had left to read in the Brother Cadfael historical mystery series, and couldn't resist picking the next one as the final book in the challenge: The Hermit of Eyton Forest . Now, some might say that being a hermit is a religious vocation rather than a profession, but in fact there once existed a professional class of ornamental or garden hermits . They were men who were specifically hired and paid to live in hermitages or other suitable structures on great estates and to be full-time hermits for a given length of time, generally seven years. I read the previous book in the serie...

Here is my first What‘s in a Name challenge book: item no. 2, the something you'd see in the sky , that thing of course being a raven . I have been making my way through the Brother Cadfael series in order of publication for the last several years, going rather slowly because I have been picking them up from second hand book shops, flea market stalls and BookMooch, knowing I would want to keep them after reading them. This is the 12th in the series out of 21, so I am a little over halfway there. Synopsis: The parish priest of Holy Cross, commonly called the Foregate because it lies just outside the walls of the abbey, dies and the Abbot of Saint Peter and Saint Paul brings back from a visit to his bishop a priest to replace him. But the priest clashes with his flock due to his inflexibility and lack of humility and kindness. When he is found drowned in the mill-pond on Christmas Day with a suspicious wound on the back of his head, foul play is suspected and Brother Cadfael ...

Year of publication: 1983 Series and no.: Brother Cadfael, # 7 Genre: Historical mystery Type of mystery: Robbery and murder Type of investigator: Monk Setting & time: Shrewsbury, England, 12th century A young travelling jongleur and entertainer is hunted down by an angry lynch mob bent on administering justice after a goldsmith is attacked and - they think - murdered on the night of his son's wedding. He manages to reach the sanctuary of the abbey church and when questioned, adamantly denies having had anything to do with the robbery. The goldsmith has survived the attack, but a robbery of that magnitude is punishable by death, so the young man is no better off. Cadfael's impression is that he is innocent, and that indefatigable sleuth sets off to investigate the crime. As always, love rears it's shining head, and the mystery seems impenetrably tangled. This is the best of the Cadfael books I have read so far. It not only has Peters' characteristic comfortabl...

The Virgin in the Ice by Ellis Peters, being the 6th chronicle of Brother Cadfael. Here Brother Cadfael is thinking about fate and accidents of birth: Well, they happen, the lightning-strokes of God, the gifted or misfortunates who are born into a world where they nowhere belong, the saints and scholars who come to manhood unrecognised, guarding the swine in the forest pastures among the beech-mast, the warrior-princes villein-born and youngest in a starving clan, set to scare crows away from the furrow. Just as hollow slave-rearlings are cradled in the palaces of kings, and come to rule, however ineptly, over men a thousand times their worth.

Year of publication: 1981 Series and no.: Brother Cadfael #5 Genre: Historical mystery Type of mystery: Murder Type of investigator: Monk Setting & time: Shrewsbury, England; 1139 A wedding is to take place at the Shrewsbury abbey church, between an ageing knight and a young woman, the heiress to a great fortune who is being forced into the union by her greedy guardian. She loves one of her groom’s squires, and he her, but she is well guarded and escape is impossible. It becomes even more so after her young swain is accused of theft and barely escapes the clutches of the sheriff. When the groom is brutally murdered, suspicion naturally falls on the young man, but Brother Cadfael has reason to believe him innocent and sets out to investigate the matter thoroughly. Meanwhile, the fugitive plans to spring his ladylove from her guardians. This is one of the best of the 5 Cadfael books I have read so far, but not THE best. This opinion probably comes from my having suspected, with...

Genre: Historical mystery Type of mystery: Murder Type of investigator: Amateur Year of publication: 1980 No. in series: 3 Series detective: Brother Cadfael, a Benedictine monk Setting & time: Shrewsbury, England, 1138 Story: A man who has pledged his estate to the monastery is murdered by slipping some massage oil made with monkshood (aconite, a deadly poison) into his food. Brother Cadfael, who made the oil to be used as a topical relief for rheumatism, is deeply offeneded. On top of that, the dead man’s wife turns out to be someone he loved very much as young man and had planned to marry. When suspicion falls on her teenage son who had been his stepfather’s intended heir before they had a falling out, she begs Cadfael to help the boy. He begins an investigation that is somewhat hampered by the Prior who is in charge of the monastery while the abbot is away and doesn’t approve of what he sees as Cadfael’s worldly ways, and also by the absence of deputy sheriff Hugh Bering...

I used to faithfully watch the television adaptations of the brother Cadfael books (starring Derek Jacobi as Cadfael) but I remember very little of them, except that I loved the medieval setting of the series. I have been patiently assembling the book series for reading ever since I joined BookMooch, as I want to read them all and would prefer to read them in order of publication. Now I have nearly the whole set and am ready to start. I read the first book, A Morbid Taste for Bones several years ago, and didn’t review it, but I may revisit it and post a review. Genre: Historical mystery Type of mystery: Murder Type of investigator: Amateur Year of publication: 1979 No. in series: 2 Series detective: Brother Cadfael, a Benedictine monk Setting & time: Shrewsbury, England, 1138 Story: At the end of the siege of Shrewsbury (a real historical event) by King Stephen (a real person), pretender to the English throne, the whole of the defending garrison, 94 men in all, are execute...

I have a bit of a problem with the two Robert Barnard books I read for the challenge. The endings of both were not to my liking for a reason a regular reader of this blog will be able to guess, and I want to read a third and maybe fourth Barnard to reassure myself it was an unlucky coincidence and not something that happens in all of his books. I may even slip someone into the challenge ahead of him. But here is a review of a book by an author already included in the challenge: Author: Sister Carol Anne O’Marie Series detective: Sister Mary Helen, w/ Sister Eileen No. in series: 5 Year of publication: 1993 Type of mystery: Murder Type of investigator: Amateurs, police Setting & time: Santiago de Compostela, Spain Number of deaths: 1 Some themes: Abuse, jealousy, family Story: Sister Mary Helen wins a trip for two to Santiago de Compostela in a sweepstake she doesn’t remember participating in, and invites her friend (and sidekick), Sister Eileen, along. At the airport they...

Title: A Novena for Murder No. in series: 1 Year published: 1984 Availability: In print Pages: 183. Setting & time: San Francisco – mostly Mount St. Francis College for Women, 1980’s (but has a somewhat timeless feel) Type of mystery: Murder Type of investigator: Amateurs and police detectives Some themes: Immigration, cultism, love, blackmail Summary: 75 year old Sister Mary Helen has been dodging retirement for several years, but now the church has decided that she deserves her rest and she has been sent to Mount St. Francis College for Women to spend her retirement at what they call the Sister’s Residence, but she knows is nothing but a convent. The former teacher expects it to be boring, but a few days after her arrival, a Professor Villanueva is found murdered in his office and suspicion falls on Leonel, the assistant cook, whose fingerprints are found on the murder weapon. Sister Mary Helen is convinced of his innocence, and starts an investigation of her own. When ...