Word: cadfael
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Historical novelty is a widespread preoccupation of mystery writers, whether to vary their stories or display newly found erudition or simply to write off a vacation trip on their tax returns. Ellis Peters offers her 14th chronicle of Brother Cadfael, a resolutely logical monk who is a 12th century forerunner of G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown, in The Hermit of Eyton Forest (Mysterious Press; 224 pages; $15.95). Peters' narratives suffer from cuteness and rarely make medieval people come alive as convincingly as, say, the ancient Greeks and Persians in the novels of Mary Renault. But she weaves a plot ably...
Another remarkable record of consistency has been notched by Edith Pargeter, a prolific British writer and translator (of Czech poetry, among other pursuits). Under the nom de crime Ellis Peters she has produced The Rose Rent (Morrow; 190 pages; $15.95), her 13th highly evocative novel about Brother Cadfael, a 12th century monk in the abbey town of Shrewsbury. Like his 20th century soulmate, Father Brown of the G.K. Chesterton stories, Cadfael attractively suggests that the highest act of faith is the use of reason. Robert Barnard, whose mordantly funny one-off mysteries are as good as any currently being produced...
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