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lisa_setepenre 's review for:
Brother Cadfael's Penance
by Ellis Peters
I closed this book with a bittersweet smile. It is always a joy to spend time with Brother Cadfael and his eleventh century world but Brother Cadfael’s Penance marks the close of the series and it is sad to know that I will never again enter Cadfael’s world and tread on new paths, left to retrace the paths I’ve already crossed. Still, it is not quite the end: I have the companion volume, A Rare Benedictine, to read yet.
It may seem a strange word to describe a series that is ostensibly about a monk solving murders but the word that comes to mind when I think about The Chronicles of Brother Cadfael is: gentle. The world of Cadfael’s cloister and Shrewsbury, crafted with Ellis Peters’s exquisite prose, is beautiful, and one may be amazed at the mystery’s twists and turns but be assured that everything will turn out alright. While Peters generally does stick to the same types of characters, they are hard not to like. The religiosity of Cadfael is strong and present but never overpowering. While often historical mysteries, especially those of the cosy crime variety, turn to comedy, as if overburdened with a sense of their own novelty, Peters does not – the characters may be idealised but not caricatures we’re meant to laugh at.
Brother Cadfael’s Penance feels a little more dangerous than the other volumes in the series – Cadfael heads into the thick of a dispute between the Empress Matilda and King Stephen and ends up in a besieged castle. As someone who read the whole series – albeit in over three years – it has a powerful resonance as a closing chapter.
It may seem a strange word to describe a series that is ostensibly about a monk solving murders but the word that comes to mind when I think about The Chronicles of Brother Cadfael is: gentle. The world of Cadfael’s cloister and Shrewsbury, crafted with Ellis Peters’s exquisite prose, is beautiful, and one may be amazed at the mystery’s twists and turns but be assured that everything will turn out alright. While Peters generally does stick to the same types of characters, they are hard not to like. The religiosity of Cadfael is strong and present but never overpowering. While often historical mysteries, especially those of the cosy crime variety, turn to comedy, as if overburdened with a sense of their own novelty, Peters does not – the characters may be idealised but not caricatures we’re meant to laugh at.
Brother Cadfael’s Penance feels a little more dangerous than the other volumes in the series – Cadfael heads into the thick of a dispute between the Empress Matilda and King Stephen and ends up in a besieged castle. As someone who read the whole series – albeit in over three years – it has a powerful resonance as a closing chapter.