A wonderful history lesson wrapped up neatly in a mystery and served with style and grace.Cincinnati Post
Enchanting . . . medieval England comes marvelously alive.Washington Post
The year is 1142, and all England is in the iron grip of civil war. And within the sheltered cloisters of the Benedictine Abbey of St. Peter and St. Paul, there begins a chain of events no less momentous than the political upheavals of the outside world.

First, there is the sad demise of Richard Ludel, Lord of Eaton, whose 10-year-old son and heir, also named Richard, is a pupil at the Abbey. The boy refuses to surrender his new powers to his formidable grandmother; supported by Abbot Radulfus, Richard defies the furious Dionysia.

A stranger to the region is the hermit Cuthred, who enjoys the protection of Lady Dionysia, and whose young companion, Hyacinth, befriends Richard. Despite his reputation for holiness, Cuthreds arrival heralds a series of mishaps for the monks. When Richard disappears and a corpse is found in Eyton Forest, Brother Cadfael is once more forced to leave the tranquility of his herb garden and devote his knowledge of human nature to tracking down a ruthless murderer.

Ellis Peters was the nom-de-crime of English novelist Edith Pargeter, author of scores of books under her own name. She was the recipient of the Silver Dagger Award, conferred by the Crime Writers Association in Britain, as well as the coveted Edgar, awarded by the Mystery Writers of America. Miss Pargeter was also well known as a translator of poetry and prose from the Czech and had been awarded the Gold Medal and Ribbon of the Czechoslovak Society for Foreign Relations for her services to Czech literature. She died in 1995.

Roe Kendall, a native of the British Isles, graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London. She has performed on stage, as a voice-over artist, and as an audiobook narrator. "I really love playing all the parts when I narrate a book. It's an adventure, a challenge, and above all I feel that I learn something new with each book I read."