About 60% a murder mystery, and 40% a textbook on 7th century Ireland.

Plot: 5. I really thought it was going to be silly at first, but as the book unfolded there were a lot of twists and turns that surprised me, and the final resolution played brilliantly into the minutiae of Irish law that this series is apparently famous for.

Execution: 2. The constant digression into explaining the meaning of some word or detailing some myth or historical happening drove me pretty nuts. I also got a little lost as the main characters journeyed hither and yon, to mountaintops, abbeys, and other places to answer their questions, and I ended up unsure as to whether these journeys took hours, weeks, or days.

Character development: 2. As book 30 in the series, the author gets a pass developing the main characters; if they haven't got personalities by this time, they never will. But the villagers were, for the most part, unreasonable and surly for not much reason at all. Any of the minor characters that were developed were mostly done to explain some fine point of language or culture.

Scenes: 1. I thought the writing was pretty unbearable, with overuse of synonyms for "said" and a habit of throwing in odd expository sentences rather than letting the scenes develop. Is this some sort of Irish writing tradition or something?

Puzzle: 3. It's kind of built-in to the story that everything is going to hinge on the main character realizing some odd fact or statute that only 7th-century Irish lawyers would ever know. So I wasn't at all surprised that I didn't guess the murderer in the end.

Overall: 2. The excellent and well-worked-out plot just didn't make up for having to slog through the writing in the end. Still, the author must be doing something right to get as many books out of a series as this. I'm just not sure what that thing is. ( )

One thing about Peter Tremayne's books is that they are totally historically accurate. His knowledge of Ancient Ireland's laws and customs is very extensive. Sometimes his books get a bit pedantic and long-winded, but they are never boring because his Sister Fidelma books are impeccably written. His character development and his plotting are wonderful in each one. By my calculation this is the 30 or 31 book in the series, and I have read everyone. I did not realize when I began this series that I would get this much insight into life in 1st Century AD Ireland. This story begins with Eadulf and Fidelma returning home from a trip away from Cashel in the month of February 671 AD, when they realize that the inn where they planned to stay has burned to the ground. It is too cold and too dark to continue on to home so they decide to make a small detour to a small village called Cloichin (pronounced Cloggen) that Fidelma remembers as a small rural community that has fertile land and is often referred to as a garden of Eden. When they arrive in the village they interrupt a hanging and meet some pretty odious people who appear to be led by a fantastical Catholic priest. This story of greed, ambition, murder and mayhem leaves a lot of bodies lying around this supposed garden of Eden, and it's up to Fidelma and Eadulf to figure it out before more people are killed. This is a great series that never gets stale. For lovers of history like me this is a must-read series that is informative as well as entertaining. ( )