Book Log 2018 #25: Dead Man's Ransom by Ellis Peters

The English civil war rages on, and when the sheriff is taken prisoner, a swap is arranged for a young Welsh prisoner from the other side. The sheriff is brought to the Abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, but is murdered before the swap is completed. Suspicion falls on the other prison, who just so happens to have fallen in love with the sheriff's daughter.

It's a pretty typical Cadfael plot, though the blurb I read about the book just now says that in helping the young prisoner Cadfael doesn't know that "the truth will be a trial for his own soul."  I didn't remember why that was, so I read a longer synopsis and, honestly, I don't think it's much of a trial. Cadfael has always been one to lean more towards natural justice than the law, and what goes down here fits that model.