Dead Man's Ransom

In 1141, the civil war between King Stephen and the Empress Maud reaches the Welsh border, and a prisoner exchange between English and Welsh forces brings the sheriff of Shropshire home. He returns wounded but alive. Then he is murdered inside the walls of the abbey.

Suspicion lands on Elis, a young Welsh hostage. Elis has fallen in love with the sheriff's daughter, and the sheriff's death would work in his favour, which makes him the obvious suspect.

Brother Cadfael, the abbey's monk and herbalist, takes up the case. Elis's honour and his life depend on what he finds. To reach the real killer, Cadfael has to sort through the loyalties, the love and the old grievances between England and Wales that run beneath the crime.

The medieval murder mystery is a late entry in Edith Pargeter's Cadfael series. Its solution weighs legal guilt against moral complexity, so the question left hanging is who killed the sheriff and what justice should do once the killer is known.