A widow who has donated her old house to the cloister asking only for one white rose from the garden each year is kidnapped. At the same time somebody is working their hardest to make sure that the rose rent isn't payed. Yet again brother Cadfael must step in and solve the mystery.

This is Peters at her absolute best. This is an amazing story. She serves us, not only a very authentic story with very believable characters and environment, but a very exciting and nerve-racking story.Read more »»

A young boy looses his parents and inherits the title Lord from his father. A body appears in the woods and a servant the young boy has befriended becomes the prime suspect. Meanwhile the boys grandmother wants the boy to leave the cloister and come home so she can form his mind in her image. Yet another mystery only solvable my Cadfael has appeared.

This is a very good book and describes the medieval England in a fantastic way. Ellis Peter really knows how, in addition to creating fantastic stories, to create authentic characters and environments.Read more »»

Cadfael receives brother Haluins confessions on his deathbed. Haluin survives and when he later gets better he and Cadfael embark on a travel to repent Haluins old sins. As time goes by Cadfael starts to realize that something is amiss.

This isn't a traditional who-done-it. The reader discovers quite quickly what has happened and the solution to the mystery. The charm lies in the story itself and how Cadfael comes to his conclusions.

As usual Peters has created a highly authentic and realistic environment with believable and sympathetic characters.Read more »»

"An excellent mystery" is exactly what it claims to be; an excellent mystery. As usual Ellis Peters doesn't disappoint and serves us a fantastic story about the detective-munk Cadfael. The year is 1141 and a great civil unrest plagues Great Britain. A nunnery is burned to the ground which later reveals that a non that should have been there never arrived; a new mystery only Cadfael can solve.

As usual the book start rather dull, but the story soon gets exciting and ends up in an enormous crescendo.Read more »»

Yet a fantastic and realistic medieval crime novel by Ellis Peters. This time around a new priest arrives in the district. The priest is a learned man with a strong belief in discipline who doesn't know the word humble. Rather quickly the priest is found dead in a pond, and once again it takes Cadfael to solve the mystery.

As usual Peters has created a fantastic and realistic story that really gives you the impression of being present in the medieval ages. The environment and the characters are quite authentic and realistic.Read more »»

"The pilgrim of hate" is yet another fantastic middle age whodunit by Ellis Peters. The book starts a bit dull. The first 3-4 chapters are actually boring. But after a while things get much better. The story gets much more exciting and the end is down right nerve wrecking.

As usual Ellis Peters has managed to put a layer of fog over the mystery so that you have no idea what's going on before you get the solution served to you at the end. You are quite a detective if you manage to guess the solution before "brother Cadfael".Read more »»

Historical fiction has a tendency to feel a little half done and dull. C. J. Sansom however is the living proof that it's possible to write amazingly good historical fiction. "Dissolution", the first book in the series about "Shardlake", is a fantastic "who done it" set in the English fifteen hundreds. The book is exciting from page one and almost impossible to put down. As soon as one is finished one has to through oneself over the next book. At the same time the book is so historically correct that it almost gives you the shivers.Read more »»

Shardlake is back again. This time with the new title sargent. Once again he has managed to stumble into a case that gets him involved in a high political game. The first couple of chapters are a bit dull and not very promising for the rest of the book, but this passes quite fast and this ends up to be the best book in the Shardlake series yet. It's amazing how Sansom manages to describe England during the fifteen hundreds. As usual the characters, the story and the environment are so authentic that it almost gives you the shivers.Read more »»

Sansom has done it yet again. The third book about "Shardlake", a British lawyer in the fifteen hundreds with high contacts, is just as good as the previous two. Sansom is a master of historical fiction and has managed in a fabulous way to create a nerve wrecking and amazingly exciting story in an authentic environment with authentic people. You almost feel like you are present in the fifteen hundreds Great Britain while reading this book. So often historical fiction is only a modern whodunit set in a historical environment, however this is not the case with Sansoms work.Read more »»

After the fantastic experience of "Dissolution" my first thought was that the follow-up "Dark Fire" couldn't possibly be wrong. Just goes to show how wrong you can be. "Dark fire" is, believe it or not, just as good as "Dissolution", possibly even better. This is the second book in the series about "Shardlake", a lawyer in England in the middle of the 15-hundreds with the right contacts and the dangerous contacts. The book is so historically correct and the characters so authentic that one can almost smell them.Read more »»