Summer of the Danes, by Ellis Peters - Brother Cadfael Mysteries

Summer of the Danes
By Ellis Peters

Brother Cadfael Mysteries

I have now officially read every single Brother Cadfael mystery novel. It took me quite a time to find this one in a format I can access readily. I found it at last on Audible.com and downloaded it to my Kindle2.

This is just barely a mystery. There is a murder. There is a call to track down the killer. The killer is, in fact, revealed. Brother Cadfael does supply the forensics, meager though they be. But that is simply not all that relevant to the story. This is an adventure and love story unlike any Brother Cadfael you have read.

Brother mark, now a deacon in the Bishop of Lichfield's service, arrives at the Abbey of St. peter and St. Paul as he makes his way on a special mission. He is to travel to the two bishops in Wales to present gifts from his own bishop. One is Gilbert, a new bishop, a Norman who speaks no Welsh, and the other is a thoroughly Welsh and well-beloved bishop. The mission is to remind each of the importance of sticking together. Mark asks for and receives Brother Cadfael as companion and translator on his traversals. On the way they meet a young woman, Helleth (sorry, I can't find the spelling online), who is the daughter of a canon who wants her out of the way. The same night as a liegeman of Prince Owine's rebellious brother Cadwallader bisits the prince's court and is thereafter murdered, Helleth disapears and a horse with her.

Jump to main plot. Mark, Cadfael and Helleth all wind up prisoners of the Dublin Danes that Cadwallader has hired to convince Owine to give him back his lands lost after one of his rebellions. Their captors treat them splendidly, and something seems to start up between the tall, robust, sexy Danish captain of the longship that captured Helleth and Cadfael and Helleth herself. As the struggle between Danes, Owine's Welsh and Cadwallader's Welsh goes through a series of broken oaths, sneakiness, ill-considered loyalties, and efforts by Mark at diplomacy, Helleth and the Dane are ever in the background making googoo eyes ever-so-subtly at each other. Meanwhile the man who was supposed to marry Helleth is creeping about. I know, you are rooting for the Dane. Me too. Cadfael gets a few weeks off from sleuthing and just watches it all transpire.

It may be that Cadfael fans will be disappointed, and perhaps this is why the novel was so hard for me to locate. I liked Helleth a lot, she was a refreshing female role. I also liked her Danish sweetie. It's a nice story of a woman who wants to choose her own mate. I suppose Peters made it a Brother Cadfael mystery so his fans would buy the book. After all, that's why I read it, though I liked her other novels I've read that were published under the name Edith Pargeter. I would say the adventure part of the novel is something Sharon Kay Penman could have done more with, but it's fine as a backdrop for the love story.

This novel is available in hardback, paperback, large print, audio cassettes and audio download.