The year is 1138 and England is torn apart by the civil war between the opposing supporters of Stephen and Matilda, rivals for the throne. Shrewsbury is a stronghold for Matilda but Stephen's forces attack the castle there and 94 of Matilda's soldiers die. Brother Cadfael, herbalist and healer in the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Paul and Saint Peter, has the unpleasant duty of preparing the dead for burial but discovers that there is an extra corpse - a victim of a murder that has little to do with the war.

Edith Pargeter wrote dozens of mysteries and historical novels, some under her own name but most using the pseudonym of Ellis Peters. The series of books which feature police officer George Felse and his family is very readable but her greatest creation is the humane and sympathetic medieval monk Brother Cadfael, who uses his knowledge of herbal medicines and his insights into the mysteries of human personality to unravel the crimes that come regularly to trouble the town of Shrewsbury and its monastery. Like so many of the best detective series, Ellis Peters's medieval mysteries depend at least as much on character as they do on plot. Cadfael, whose adventurous past includes a career as a soldier and crusader but who is now content to tend his herb garden, is the focus of the stories but others have their parts to play. One Corpse Too Many, for example, introduces the practical man of the world, deputy sheriff Hugh Beringar, whose developing friendship with Cadfael is at the heart of other novels. Some of the later Cadfael stories grow increasingly formulaic and repetitive but in One Corpse Too Many, the second in the series, the characters, from Cadfael himself to Beringar, his fellow searcher after truth, are fresh and engaging and mystery and history are neatly combined.

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