An ambitious, satisfying historical mystery.
Sullivan’s (Cover Her Body, 2011) latest mystery follows a 19th-century midwife and herbalist as she attempts to solve a murder—and save an innocent man.
The town of Zoar, Ohio, appears to be an idyllic, if strict, community, settled by German dissidents seeking religious freedom. The Separatists pride themselves on simple, communal living, in which all work and profits are shared, but, like most seemingly perfect towns, tensions lurk beneath the surface. The inhabitants struggle to live piously while also retaining some independence by, for example, questioning their rigid leadership. Adelaide, a young, headstrong healer, is conflicted about this prescribed way of life—and especially about the Separatists’ distrust of the outside world. After a vagabond artist, barely tolerated by Zoar’s residents, turns up dead, Adelaide questions the townspeople’s circumstantial indictment of a traveling Irishman; they plan to turn him over to American authorities, who will almost certainly sentence him to death. Determined to solve the artist’s murder and clear the Irishman’s name, Adelaide becomes convinced that a fellow Separatist is responsible for the crime. Adelaide pushes the town’s leader to investigate—an act considered inappropriate by many of the other residents; women, despite the community’s official policy of equality, are clearly subservient citizens. Adelaide’s progressive attitude makes her an effective protagonist, and the story effectively shows the autonomy granted to midwives in 1830s America. For example, Adelaide travels outside of Zoar to attend to birthing women, and Zoar’s males often defer to her directives based on her medical expertise, even when it goes against their wishes. (This comes in handy when she refuses to allow the accused Irishman to be sent away while still in need of medical care.) Sullivan, a real-life descendent of Zoar’s founders, spends as much time on Adelaide’s and the other characters’ daily lives as she does on the plot, and this focus can feel a bit overdone at times, as can the occasional dips into old-fashioned language. That said, Sullivan generally delivers well-structured prose and strong dialogue, and her detailed overview of settler life—and the surprising independence of the town’s female population—makes for an enjoyable read.
An ambitious, satisfying historical mystery.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1939288110
Page Count: 328
Publisher: Yesteryear Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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