Second best cozy mysteries.

There are people who may disagree with me. That’s OK. I can’t make you be right. There are people who say to me, Elena, “I don’t think that №1 Ladies’ Detective Agency mystery series are the best cozy mysteries. They are, indeed, wonderful, but I think the best cozy mystery series is Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael.”

Hmm … actually, I have never had this conversation with anyone. But I often do have conversations, both real and imagined, with my readers. And you know, this statement actually does give me pause. I think on this Brother Cadfael advocacy, and I don’t agree, but at the same time, I don’t disagree fully, either. If I had to pick a number two — a second favorite cozy mystery series, Brother Cadfael comes awfully close.

There are 20 Cadfael novels, written by Peters (that was the pen name of Edith Pargeter), with the last book in the series bringing together the loose story ends into a tidy conclusion, written between 1977 and 1994. The books are extraordinary. The TV show, starring the tremendous, incredible and fabulous (all the adjectives apply) Derek Jacobi does the books justice, because the TV show doesn’t change anything from them.

The books are set in 12th-century England during the Anarchy, a period of civil war between King Stephen and Empress Maud for the English throne. (I obviously looked that up. My British history knowledge is barely OK, and to keep track of all the wars, the upheavals, the civil wars, the pretenders to the thrones and the actual heirs, that takes an education in actual…