Book Review: A Rare Benedictine: The Advent of Brother Cadfael (Chronicles of Brother Cadfael #0.5) by Ellis Peters
(Four Stars)
“My son, you are not one of these sinful men?” “Sinful man I am, but not of their company.”
Excellent introduction to Cadfael and to the series. Three novelettes, spread over the career of our monastic sleuth, introduce the reader to Ellis’s style of medieval cozy.
“He had been in the world fifty-five years, and learned to temper his expectations, bad or good.”
Then first story is an origin tale, which readers of the corpus will not wish to miss Cadfael before he joined the Benedictines.
“Many a man has fled from grief in the cloister, only to find that grief can follow him there.”
Ellis Peters is a nom de plume of the late Dame Edith Pargeter OBE BEM, who published the Chronicles of Brother Cadfael from 1977 through 1994. Excepting this work, I intend to read and review all twenty-one novels in order. It will be my fourth survey of the entire series.
“Cadfael was liable to brood on the unlikely.”
As a Matter of Fancy 
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