Ignored on her birthday by her husband and son, Bunty Felse takes herself out to celebrate—and finds herself in mortal danger.
On the eve of her forty-first birthday, Bunty Felse is overcome with depression. The weather is dreary; her only child, Dominic, fails to call with birthday greetings; and her husband, George, arrives home only to announce that he has to leave for London immediately to attend to urgent police business. After almost twenty years as a detective’s wife, Bunty doesn’t protest or complain; she sends George off with a swiftly packed case.
To shake off her black mood, Bunty goes out for a solitary evening walk. She stops at the local pub for a drink and accepts a lift home from a sad young man whose troubles draw her out of her own and makes her feel compelled to help him. But as soon as the car door closes, the driver reveals a dark secret that could lead them both to early graves. Will she manage to escape the mysterious fugitive before it’s too late?
The Grass Widow’s Tale is the 7th book in the Felse Investigations, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
Ellis Peters is a pseudonym of Edith Mary Pargeter (1913–1995), a British author whose Chronicles of Brother Cadfael are credited with popularizing the historical mystery. Cadfael, a Welsh Benedictine monk living at Shrewsbury Abbey in the first half of the twelfth century, has been described as combining the curious mind of a scientist with the bravery of a knight-errant. The character has been adapted for television, and the books drew international attention to Shrewsbury and its history.
Pargeter won an Edgar Award in 1963 for Death and the Joyful Woman, and in 1993 she won the Cartier Diamond Dagger, an annual award given by the Crime Writers’ Association of Great Britain. She was appointed officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1994, and in 1999 the British Crime Writers’ Association established the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger award, later called the Ellis Peters Historical Award.