Brother Cadfael is the protagonist of a series of 20 medieval murder mysteries written by Ellis Peters.  I'm not usually a big fan of murder mysteries.  I'm not sure why.  Perhaps it's just that I have too little attention for detail... usually I find myself at the end of a mystery thinking, "Huh?  What just happened?  How'd he know that's who did it?"  But I never have any trouble following Cadfael's reasoning.  I think I also enjoy the stories' humanistic qualities.  At over 60, Cadfael has learned to have patience with human folly, and his good-natured sympathy for his fellow man makes the stories a pleasure to read.   The murderers in these stories aren't monsters or motiveless ravening lunatics, like the murderers in too many other mysteries I've read, but simply more-fallible-than-usual human beings.
 

Yes, I've read all 20 books (plus the 3 short stories in _A Rare Benedictine_).   :-)  I've watched all the PBS shows, too, but they're not nearly as good.

There are lots of other medieval murder mystery series -- not surprising, given the success of Brother Cadfael -- but the only ones I've read and liked so far are written by Sharon Newman.  These extensively researched books -- you can write to the author for a copy of her bibliography -- are contemporary with the Cadfael books, but set in France instead of England.  The protagonists are a young ex-nun, Catherine, and her Saxon husband Edgar.

Incidentally, you can connect Catherine and Cadfael by three degrees of separation -- ie, Cadfael knows X who knows Y who knows Catherine.  If you're curious how -- or you can think of a way to connect them by two degrees -- be sure to let me know!

There are surprisingly few Cadfael resources on the Web -- there isn't even a Usenet newsgroup.  Here I have a few links to other Cadfael pages, a Cadfael Windows '95 Theme, and some Cadfael icons.  Sometime when I'm feeling very industrious I may scan in some of my photos and postcards from my trip to Shrewsbury last year -- well worth the trip next time you find yourself in England.  (Yeah, right.  We should all be so lucky.)
 
 
 

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