THE THIRTEENTH MEMBER

by Mollie Hunter ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 25, 1971

Once again Mollie Hunter finesses concentric motifs through a spiraling scenario in which the repressible but ultimately inexorable instincts for freedom and compassion in a kitchenmaid and a bondsman unmask the Devil and deal him his due for conspiring to murder the King. His weapons are witches -- three covens -- and gentle Gilly Duncan is the unwilling thirteenth member of one; Scotland is the place and 1590 is the year and Adam Lawrie, sixteen, is the bondsman who articulates the challenge. ""No one has to be bound to another's will,"" he charges Gilly on being told of her mother's consignment of her to the Devil; she says ""You are bound to Seton."" ""Aye, my service is bound to him. But not my will! That will always be my own."" It isn't so simple for her, however -- a covenant with the Devil is different from a covenant with a man; but Master Grahame, the reclusive alchemist with a mysterious ax to grind witch-wise, reveals to Adam and a reluctantly trusting Gilly that the Devil is a man -- a man equipped with some props and a knowledge of the physical properties of phosphorous. The focus shifts from explication to confrontation at the Hallowe'en Grand Sabbat and thence to the court of King James at Edinburgh after a mad trial and before a still madder one, tension always escalating evenly; the plotting is extravagant but the controlled prose is exacting and the performance is the more commanding for being tailored to unpretentious readability.

Pub Date: Aug. 25, 1971

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harper & Row

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1971

Categories: FICTION