Ellis Peters

The winter of 1139 will disrupt Brother Cadfael's tranquil life in Shrewsbury, as raging civil war has sent refugees fleeing north from Worcester. Among them are two young orphans from a noble family and their companion, a young Benedictine nun. The trio, never reaching Shrewsbury, have disappeared somewhere in the wild countryside. Cadfael feels afraid for these three lost lambs, but another call for help sends him to the Church of Saint Mary. A...

The year is 1142. England is in the iron grip of civil war. And within the sheltered cloisters of the Benedictine Abbey, there begins a chain of events no less momentous than the upheavals of the outside world. First, there is the sad demise of the Lord of Eaton, whose ten-year-old son and heir, the young Richard, is a pupil at the Abbey. The boy refuses to surrender his new powers to his formidable grandmother, Dionysia. Then there is the arrival...

In the battle of Lincoln, the sheriff of Shropshire is captured, and the king himself is detained by his enemies. An exchange of prisoners is arranged: the sheriff will be bartered for a young Welsh lordling who has been captured during a misguided assault on a convent. All seems to be going according to plan until one of the prisoners dies under mysterious circumstances before the exchange is completed. Cadfael must determine whether the death was...

After a guest at Shrewsbury Abbey dies of a fatal dose of monk's-hood, Cadfael will not rest until the truth is known.

St. Peter's Fair is a grand, festive event, attracting merchants 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 town of Shrewsbury--until the body of a wealthy merchant is found murdered in the river Severn. A crime-solving monk steps in.

Twelfth century Shrewsbury comes dramatically to life in Ellis Peters' story of Brother Cadfael--a good man in an evil world.