One Corpse Too Many - Critical Reception

Critical Reception

Kirkus Reviews finds the author has improved on the first book with this novel:

A second, even smoother medieval adventure for Brother Cadfael (A Morbid Taste for Bones)--once a Crusader and man of the world, now an accomplished herbalist at the monastery in 12th-century Shrewsbury, a town racked by civil war. King Stephen has conquered, his enemies have all been massacred, but--while preparing these nameless bodies for Christian burial--Cadfael finds one to be the victim of a more personal sort of murder. So he tries to identify both victim and murderer. . . while aiding two heroic young people on the lam. And his ambivalent cohort in detection is valiant Hugh Beringar, whose hand-to-hand combat with the murderer wraps things up with a zing. Peters (who writes full-blown historicals as Edith Pargeter) makes the most of the medieval atmosphere, but she never lets the meticulously researched place-and-time interfere with the canny puzzle, the flesh-and-blood characterization, or the sharp tension. A must for fans of mysteries in period settings--and good enough to win over a few who've previously shied away from that delicate sub-genre.

The website of the Little, Brown Book Group quotes four good reviews.

1. "A cult figure of crime fiction" Financial Times
2. "A pleasing and unusual mixture of suspense and historical fiction" Evening Standard
3. "Soothing, but no shortage of mayhem" The Observer
4. A more attractive and prepossessing detective would be hard to find" Sunday Times

Fantastic Fiction's website reprints the following quote: "Each addition to the series is a joy. Long may the chronicles continue." from a review from USA Today.