A Morbid Taste for Bones
A Morbid Taste for Bones opens Ellis Peters' Chronicles of Brother Cadfael, a medieval mystery series set in and around Shrewsbury Abbey in 1137. Prior Robert sends a party of monks into Wales to claim the bones of Saint Winifred, hoping the relics will raise the abbey's standing, but the town of Gwytherin is divided over surrendering its saint to the English.
Cadfael, a Welsh-born monk with a worldly past as a soldier and crusader before he took his vows, is sent along as translator and guide. When the leading local opponent to the abbey's plan is found shot dead with an arrow, some in the town whisper that Saint Winifred herself struck him down, but Cadfael knows a human hand did the killing and sets out to find it before the dispute over the saint's bones turns to further bloodshed. It is a slower, character-grounded whodunit built on Peters' close knowledge of medieval monastic life.
A Welsh-born Benedictine monk at Shrewsbury Abbey with a worldly past as a soldier and crusader, who investigates a murder during a mission to claim a saint's relics.