This successfully novel gets inside the medieval and monastic world. At first it’s developing a police novel, but after this
first level we can get a huge picture of the characters: from the inquisitor fanatic till the hypocrite monks, going through a forbidden gay relationship and not that much from other characters of the
convent, besides Eco uses that to teach us history, philosophy and a good use of a correct writing.
The story itself is pretty simple: a Franciscan monk and his assistant try to solve a case of lost of
killings in the convent, every time that they get closer to find it, the killings increase and as in every police novel the killer is the one you couldn’t think about and the monk – detective, too; is in danger of being eliminated; in the middle of the whole action, the high inquisitor and his court appear just to condemn an innocent just because the mysterious killer is never going to be catch; but of course, at the end of it, our monk will solve the case but will be unable to stop the partial destruction of the convent and the killing-itself of the real killer.
In my opinion, one of the best novels of the 20th century, and besides, it can be enjoyed by lots of different audience