Monk's Hood (Cadfael Chronicles) [Paperback]

A more attractive and preposessing detective would be hard to find -Sunday Times

Past misdeeds find present and deadly reckonings in the third chronicle of Brother Cadfael, Ellis Peters' marvellously created medieval detective. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Gervase Bonel, with his wife and servants, is a guest of Shrewsbury Abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul when he is suddenly taken ill. Luckily, the Abbey boasts the services of the clever and kindly Brother Cadfael, a skilled herbalist. Cadfael hurries to the man's bedside, only to be confronted by two very different surprises. In Master Bonel's wife, he good monk recognises Richildis, whom he loved many years ago before he took his vows, and Master Bonel has been fatallly poisoned by a dose of deadly monk's-hood oil from Cadfael's herbarium. The Sherrif is convinced that the murdered is Richildis' son Edwin, who had reasons aplenty to hate his stepfather. But Cadfael, guided in part by his tender concern for a woman to whom he was once betrothed, is certain of her son's innocence. Using his knowledge of both herbs and the human heart, Cadfael deciphers a deadly recipe for murder.

THE THIRD CHRONICLE OF BROTHER CADFAEL

In exchange for keep for life for himself, his wife and two servants, Gervase Bonel assigned his manor of Mallilie to the Abbey of St Peter and St Paul at Shrewsbury. But within too short a time Master Bonel was dying, poisoned by a concoction of Brother Cadfael's making. Whose hand did the deed – and why? Summoned to the bedside, Cadfael recognises Bonel's wife immediately: Richeldis, the girl Cadfael himself left to find glory on the battlefields of the Holy Land. Past misdeeds find present and deadly reckonings in this, the Third Chronicle of Brother Cadfael, Ellis Peter's marvellously created mediaeval detective.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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.