In this mystery in the award-winning series featuring a twelfth-century Benedictine monk, Brother Cadfael must travel to the heart of a leper colony to root out the secret behind a savage murder. Setting out for the Saint Giles leper colony outside Shrewsbury, Brother Cadfael has more pressing matters on his mind than the grand wedding coming to his abbey. But as fate would have it, Cadfael … would have it, Cadfael arrives at Saint Giles just as the nuptial party passes the colony’s gates.
When he sees the fragile bride looking like a prisoner between her two stern guardians and the bridegroom—an arrogant, fleshy aristocrat old enough to be her grandfather—he quickly discerns this union may be more damned than blessed. Indeed, a savage murder will interrupt the May–December marriage and leave Cadfael with a dark, terrible mystery to solve. Now, with the key to the killing hidden among the lepers of Saint Giles, the monk must ferret out a sickness not of the body, but of a twisted soul.
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I’ve read and enjoyed many of Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael books. Set in the 1100’s in England, the mysteries and histories are engagingly detailed. Brother Cadfael is an interesting character because he is a cleric with a previous life in the Crusades. He uses experience and logic to solve the “who dunits”. This is a very successful series and it’s easy to understand why.
While not ‘great writing’, I enjoy the Brother Cadfael stories. The Leper of St. Giles is a pretty obvious mystery…. I had things figured out about 1/3 of the way thru…. it still has a certain….serenity…to me. Brother Cadfael is a real person….and I enjoy all the stories about him. I think, even tho this is not the strongest story, most people who enjoy historical fiction may enjoy the series. Give them a try.
The Brother Cadfael series are wonderful novels. I love them. Once I start one, I cannot put it down until I am finished
Highly recommended to people who like detective and historical and medieval novels