Seventh Cadfael Omnibus

"Ellis Peters is the creator of the most unusual detective in fiction." Mail on Sunday

The seventh omnibus edition of Ellis Peter's compulsive and bestselling mediaeval mysteries.

THE HOLY THIEF
At the height of the hot summer of 1144, the Earl of Essex succumbs to a fatal arrow-but only after a lingering fever, during which his officials do their best to save him from hellfire by restoring properties he has annexed including the abbey at Ramsey. The abbey is in a sorry state that a call for help in restoring it goes out to all the houses of the Benedictine Order. But when heavy rains bring the threat of floods to Shrewbury, and the holy relics must be removed to a place of safety, the subsiding waters, reveal a robbery has been committed. The master sleuthing of Brother Cadfael is put to the test once more, but to the crime of theft is soon added a murder.

BROTHER CADFAEL'S PENANCE
In the year of our Lord 1145, the bitter rift between king Stephen and Empress Maud at last has a chance of reconciliation. A council takes place between the two sides that is hoped will resolve the question of prisoners of war. Brother Cadfael, ensconced in the herb garden at the Abbey of the St Peter and St Paul, seeks leave to attend the crucial meeting. For he has learnt that among the prisoners is one Oliver de Bretagne, a young man who calls upon loyalties higher than even Cafdael's monastic vows. 'Before I was a brother I was a father', Cadfael observes and his determination to come to his son's aid prompts a perplexing investigation of a unique and personal nature.

A RARE BENEDICTINE
In these three vintage tales of intrique and treachery; 'A Light on the Road to Woodstock', The Price of Light' and 'Eye Witness', emerge the events that turned Cafdael from a crusading and seafaring past to the momentous decision of entering the Benedictine Order in the Abbey of Saint of 1120: 'What happens to him on the road to Woodstock is simply the acceptance of a revelation from within that the life he has lived to date, active mobile and often violent, has reached its natural end, and he is confronted by a new need and different challenge.'