A Morbid Taste for Bones: The First Chronicle of Brother Cadfael [UNABRIDGED]

Rating:
Summary: Perfect for insomniacs... will put you to sleep.
Review: This story starts out pretty successfully. We are shown the life of the brothers in the abbey and their daily routines. This seems to set the tone for a dull plot. Then, the reader experiences the sickness of a brother of the abbey and the mood of the story changes from the placidity of the abbey life to the chaos of trying to help the brother. This livens the book up some, but not enough. Very few exciting events happen between that point until the death of Rhisiart. After Rhsisiart's death, we are thrown back into that state of low-action; only this time, with the added commotion of trying to figure out the murderer's identity. The ending wasn't a huge shocker. It was almost too predictable from the beginning. So, all in all, I would not recommend this book unless you wanted to be easily put to sleep.

Rating:
Summary: I discern no love of the subject
Review: Though this
story was set during mediaeval
times, in an atmosphere involving
Benedictine monks and Christian
liturgical practice, I detected no love on the author's
part of the subject matter at all.
She merely used it as a background setting for
a mystery.
Thus it was a chore to plod through
the book, as meanwhile the author
is seemingly snickering at these
"backward" ignorant monks.
All except the hero, of course, who magically
just turns out to be modern-minded
and liberal, (very similar to the character
Brother William, that Umberto Eco
used in The Name of The Rose,
to ridicule mediaeval thought).
In other words it is a dead giveaway: straight
out of the 20th century. Such an incongruity
between the atmosphere and the main character
became a constant distraction and irritation.
I do not recommend this book,
nor am I moved to read her
other works in this series.