One Corpse Too Many (thoughts) and The Themed Reading Challenge Wrap-Up

After much craziness, that involved my fibro, a laptop in a coma, and an extended babysitting job, I’m finally back. :D And this time it’s for real; get ready for almost-daily posts again, and probably a ridiculously long Sunday Salon trying to talk about the books I’ve been reading. :) I thought it best to jump right into the swing of things, and review a wonderful mystery book I just finished: One Corpse Too Many by Ellis Peters. I also need to wrap up the Themed Reading Challenge, which ended last month, and since my theme was the Middle Ages, it fits in perfectly. :)

One Corpse Too Many is the second in a mystery series featuring Brother Cadfael, a twelfth-century monk living in Shrewsbury. I read A Morbid Taste for Bones, the first back, back in 2007 and enjoyed it very much. It’s a sign of what book blogging has done to my TBR list that it took me this long to get to the second one!

I found this one better than the first, in that the plot grabbed me from the first page and didn’t let me go until the very end. I read it in a day (although not in one sitting), since it’s about 200 pages, and I stayed up a bit past my bedtime because there just wasn’t a good place to stop. :) Brother Cadfael is wonderful; I love his belief in justice and honour, his gentle amusement and support of young people, and of course his marvelous intelligence.

The mystery is quite interesting; Shrewsbury Castle has just fallen in the civil war between King Stephen and the Empress Maud. Stephen hangs ninety-four men to make a point, but when Cadfael is preparing the bodies, he discovers a ninety-fifth one, and this one has been strangled. Cadfael convinces Stephen that justice is important, and begins to solve the case. Meanwhile, there’s political intrigue going on, as Cadfael helps shelter a fugitive or two, and as the abbey must adjust to a new, although possibly temporary, ruler. Peters juggles the various threads beautifully. And while I did guess the murderer (I usually do), there was a twist to one character’s personality that I didn’t expect but that flowed organically with the story. Does that make sense? Obviously I haven’t tried writing about a book in awhile: look at all of those run-on sentences!

All in all, I was delighted to be back with Brother Cadfael, and I certainly won’t wait two years before picking up the third book, Monk’s Hood.

Now for the challenge wrap-up! The idea was to pick a theme among your TBR books, and then read four relevent books by July. I managed three by July, but although I just finished this one, I’m counting it anyway. So I kind of completed this challenge. ;)

The books I read, linked to my reviews:
Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart by John Guy
Confessions of a Pagan Nun by Kate Horsley (I guess I forgot to review this one! But I gave it four stars-it was an interesting look at Ireland as it was changing from pagan to Catholic.)
A Well-Timed Enchantment by Vivian Vande Velde
One Corpse Too Many by Ellis Peters

The best book: I’d say that’s a tie beween Queen of Scots and One Corpse Too Many. They’re so different, biography vs. mystery, but they both felt scholarly and fascinating.
Any new authors?All but Peters.
Books I did not finish: I didn’t get to four of the books in my pool, but I didn’t start any of them.
What did I learn from this challenge? I learned a lot about Mary, Queen of Scots. :) She had a fascinating life!