I'm not usually a fan of short stories, but this sounded interesting, and it was. Sister Fidelma is, in addition to a sister in the Celtic church and the sister of a King, also an advocate in the Brehon courts. She goes where she is needed to investigate and where necessary, represent those accused of crimes.Fidelma is an unusual character, who's wisdome, logic and complete confidence in her own abilities allows her to resist attempts at bullying, intimidation and dismissal by men both at and above her rank as she proves time and time again, to be very capable of solving even the cleverest of crimes.I enjoyed the book. The stories are short and well conceived. If you pay attention you can solve the crimes right along with Fidelma.You also get insights into the structure of both life and law of the Celtic society of the time - the seventh century A.D. in Ireland. An interesting addition to the stories themselves
Set in seventh century Ireland, these mystery stories were fun to read. The protagonist, Sister Fidelma, is a brilliant lawyer/nun who goes around solving murders (mostly). She takes just a few facts and sound reasoning and figures out what no one else can figure out.Since the stories were all previously published, several details were repeated in each story. I constantly edited the stories in my head because the writing definitely could have been better in just about every paragraph.Overall, though, I looked forward to reading the stories. This says a lot because I usually put down a book that bores me.
What do You think about Whispers Of The Dead (2004)?
I was a bit disappointed with this book. I love historical novels, I love Irish history and I love the Early Christian period, but I find some of it cumbersome to read - I often felt I was buried in historical detail at the expense of there being any pace and character development. I think what bothered me most was that in one passage I found a historical flaw - placing an actual historical figure whom I have actually researched myself - about 350 years earlier than he actually lived. For me, this called into question how much freedom or poetic license he was taking with other details I don't know that much about, and took away some of the authenticity of the writing, or at least called it into question. It also made me wonder about the extent to which his many readers might be getting misled in grasping the historical contexts in general.
—Moire
