10 books like The Virgin in the Ice

Sister Joan is yet another religious sleuth. Set in the early 1990s, I think this series now qualifies as a historical mystery. It is a lighter read than my other choices, but one I absolutely loved and, like Cadfael, I dived in and devoured the lot. Vow of Silence is the first and hooked me straight away. The religious life fascinates me and I enjoyed the way the ceremonial routine of the convent was woven into the mysteries. This detail serves to immerse you in the life of Sister Joan, a down-to-earth heroine who drew my admiration. The mysteries unfold naturally into the setting and don’t seem incongruous. A more gentle read than the others I have chosen, but acutely satisfying.

With Charles Dickens investigating, I had to check this out. The author’s imaginative use of Dickens as a sleuth is rooted in facts new to me. I didn’t know he had set up a sanctuary for fallen women, for example. Having read much Dickens, I found the voice authentic. His Victorian world, so intense in his novels, was equally immersive here – the poverty, the dirt, the inequality – and I became thoroughly involved in the story and the unfolding investigation. If an author can draw me into their world and hold me… this did, due to impressive detailed research. I was particularly struck by the compassion visible in this Dickens which made me realise how much his books also demonstrate this aspect of his character.

This story seized my imagination from the off for its unusual setting and sleuth. I mean, you don’t get to be transported to the Netherlands in the 17th Century every day of the week. Our narrator is a priest – always a fascinating field for a sometime convent schoolgirl. And he’s an unusual priest at that. Master Mercurius is not always at ease with his calling and even less keen on the spying task he is set by William of Orange. I was lost in Mercurius’s world even before the murder and the escalating twists and turns kept me on tenterhooks. This is a series to be savoured.

This one had me on the edge of my seat. More telling for me to be thrown back in time to the 1960s. I didn’t live this life, but the background was familiar. I remember the Kray brothers and I did once briefly have a job in the sleazy sort of club where the boss had his goons hold a guy so he could punch him in the gut. Scary. Simon Michael’s story is all too believable and it is a testament to his ability to pull me into that world that it threw up long-gone memories. The story is told in first person which works to keep you guessing along with the protagonist barrister sleuth. For me it was a thrill ride into the past.

Ellis Peters—the penname of Edith Pargeter—wrote eighteen Brother Cadfael mysteries as well as a set of Inspector Felese Mysteries and a separate Trilogy.

All her stories take place during the twelve years when two English monarchs (King Steven and his cousin the Empress Maud) are fighting each other for the throne. Brother Cadfael is a monk who lives in the Abbey of Shrewsbury. A marriage has been arranged between an aging nobleman and a young woman (Iveta, a wealthy heiress), coerced by her greedy guardians. Both parties arrive at the Abbey where the wedding is to take place.

Unbeknownst to her guardians, Iveta has fallen in love with Joscelin, a squire to the bridegroom (Picard). The night before the wedding, Picard goes to visit his long-held mistress and on his return to the Abbey, he is killed. Joscelin is immediately suspected and hunted by the sheriff and his men. He… show more.

Did I ever think that a nearly 50-year-old mystery series… following the trials of Welsh monk…during the war between King Stephen and Queen Maude in the mid-1100s… would become one of my favorite mystery series of all time? Obviously not. But Brother Cadfael is, of course, not your ordinary monk, and this is not your ordinary cozy series. The strictly ordained lives of cloistered brothers make a fantastic structure on which to hang brilliant murder mysteries that involve reliquaries, lepers, and more than a few gallant soldiers.

This is the second in a murder series with a historical slant. Brother Cadfael, ex-crusading soldier-turned-monk is an intriguing character in himself. He runs the monastery’s herb garden in Shrewsbury in 12th Century England. When he is asked to bury 94 bodies of people who died because of the fighting between King Stephen and Empress Maud, he discovers a total of 95 corpses and realises that a very clever murder is lurking in the town.  

Several bands of pilgrims descend on the abbey where Cadfael is a monk in twelfth-century England. Among them is the widow Dame Alice Weaver with her crippled nephew Rhun and his sister. Two young men, Ciaran and Matthew, arrive with them. Ciaran is under a vow to walk to Wales, barefoot and with a heavy iron cross around his neck, in penance for an impulsive killing. Matthew has vowed to accompany Ciaran to the end. A theft implicates both Ciaran and Matthew, one of whom is a thief in disguise. I love the way Peters’ plot turns on Christianity as it was practiced then, and the way the pious, suffering from hate and jealousy as well as love, rationalize the ideals of their religion to their own advantage.

This introduces readings to the life, teachings, and art of one of the world’s greatest female artists and intellectuals of the western mystical traditions. A 12th-century abbess of a large and influential Benedictine abbey, she defied convention for women in the Middle Ages and became a prominent preacher, healer, scientist, artist, composer, and theologian. Virtually unknown for almost 800 years, it is a credit to the women’s movement in restoring her lost legacy. 

Publications of her writings, performances of her musical compositions, her ecological insights, and sense of earth “as a region of delight” are no longer silenced and contribute to vibrant understanding and discussions in the contemporary world. The art in Illuminations emerges from her mystical visions.

In 2012, Pope Benedict declared Hildegard of Bingen, a 12th Century nun, to be Saint Hildegard, recognizing “her holiness of life and the originality of her teaching.” This biography of Hildegard is Matthew Fox’s third book on this once-obscure nun, who from childhood had prophetic and God-inspired visions. Hildegard documented those revelations in her art, music, and writings. At a time when the church cited Eve as an example of how women are innately evil, Hildegard argued that the divine feminine existed to balance the masculine tendency to lord power over others. Although her efforts did little to budge the gender lines within the church hierarchy, she did lead a successful charge to keep nuns away from the clutches of abusive priests by establishing separate monasteries. That alone should have earned her sainthood, in my opinion. However, her honors were earned on many fronts. Her botanical and medicinal texts are… show more.