Peters

A Morbid Taste for Bones: The First Chronicle of Brother Cadfael by Ellis Peters (1977)

In this novel set in the Middle Ages, a group of monks arrives in a small Welsh village to take possession of the bones of a local saint for their monastery in England. The monks must convince the villagers to give them the remains, but negotiations go poorly and the Welsh resist. Then one of their most prominent citizens is found murdered in the woods. Who did it? Why? Was it a divine warning or something more human? With this mystery Ellis Peters (a penname for Edith M. Pargeter) introduces the world to The Chronicles of Brother Cadfael series.

The plot for A Morbid Taste for Bones takes a while to develop. While setting up her story, Peters is also introducing a new character and setting. Peters resists rushing her narrative. She is careful and deliberate. By the time the murder is discovered in Chapter Five, the main characters are well-developed and the conflict logically leads to the crime.

Unfortunately, the second half of the book is not as good as the first. Where the beginning is believable and character-driven, the end isn’t – at least I didn’t think so. I found some characters’ thoughts and motives inconsistent or unreasonable. At one point, it sounded like Peters got caught in a literary dead end and tried to force the solution. I had to reread entire sections several times to figure out what was happening. This is the exact opposite of the clarity of the first half. I also thought the murderer and motive were too obvious. In the end, I found the solution convoluted and unsatisfying. With how good the beginning was, I was disappointed with the conclusion.

However, this novel had some positives. Brother Cadfael is an interesting character. He has not been a monk all his life like others in his order. He “chose the cowl with both eyes open” after a long, full, adventurous life. He had seen the world, loved many women, battled pirates in the Mediterranean Sea, and fought in the First Crusade. These experiences make him more grounded and streetwise than those around him who have spent their whole lives in seclusion. Now retired, he has devoted his life to God. He lives in a small monastery in England where he tends the order’s garden, growing its food and some exotic medicinal herbs he brought from his travels. I thought this mixture of worldliness and godliness made his character fascinating.

I also liked the medieval setting. This story takes place long before forensic science and modern policing. As Cadfael works to solve the murder, he has nothing to rely on except his intelligence, common sense, and life experiences. He understands human nature. During the Crusades, he saw the best and worst of people, especially those who were supposed to be holy and pure: “[T]here are as holy persons outside orders as ever there are in… good men out of the Christian church as most I’ve met within it.” This is a society with a strict social order, where prejudices and hierarchies are expected, accepted, and enforced. Peasants are sinners, clergy are holy, and nobles are God’s chosen rulers. Every good or bad thing is declared either “God’s Will” or “God’s Judgement”. But Cadfael can see through all the masks and pretention. In the end, his past helps him solve the crime.

A Morbid Taste for Bones is OK but not fantastic. What saves this book is its setting and an interesting main character. I also liked how Peters was inspired by the real-life competition between medieval churches and communities for prestige through the possession of holy relics. It made the motive more believable and more dastardly. The journey these monks took for these relics is also real. A group of monks from Shrewsbury Abbey, where the story begins, really did travel to Wales in the Twelfth Century to procure the bones of Saint Winifred. We still have the record of the quest written down by one of the monks. So, A Morbid Taste for Bones is historical fiction as well as a detective story. In the end, while this first entry into the Brother Cadfael series was not great, it had enough there for me to give the series another chance.