2009 historical mystery. In Boston in 1773, Abigail Adams (wife of
lawyer and future president John Quincy Adams) tries to solve the
murder of one woman and the disappearance of another.
Barbara Hamilton is a pen-name adopted by Barbara Hambly for this
excursion into historical fiction, but in spite of the absence of
magicians this is very clearly a Barbara Hambly book. OK, the good
guys here are despised by the bad guys because they're
pre-Revolutionary Americans rather than because they're wizards, but
an awful lot of the familiar Hambly ideas are here, particularly the
religiously-inspired nutters of the Church of No Redeeming Virtues.
Abigail is drawn in to the investigation because the authorities are
uninterested, being already reasonably sure that her husband John was
responsible. But what evidence do they hold?
Hambly does resist the temptation to make all the revolutionaries good
and all the British bad; both sides have a reasonable mixture of
people, and one of the more interesting secondary characters is a
British lieutenant who's clearly a practitioner of scientific
investigation (if perhaps a little ahead of his time), and his
fencing with Abigail as they both accept that preventing more murders
is more important than either of their political goals provides one of
the more pleasing motifs.
As with other recent Hambly, it's a very padded book, even at 368
pages, though here the padding is what seems like well-researched
historical detail rather than invention. (A slave-owning Sam Adams
seems like something of a misstep, though.) There's never any doubt as
to who's historical and who's an invented character, and Hambly wisely
gives the inventions most of the narrative (even if this does mean
that Abigail speaks more with Lieutenant Coldstone than with her own
husband).
In spite of all that period detail, though, there's an oddly
twentieth-century sensibility to the book, reminiscent in some ways of
Georgette Heyer's Cousin Kate (not, to my mind, one of her
successes): these historical characters seem far too familiar with the
idea and mindset of a compulsive killer, considering that the concept
was not even codified before the intensive interest that followed the
murders committed by Jack the Ripper more than a century after this
book is set. The relationship between Abigail and Coldstone seems far
too friendly, given the political situation, and another character
reversal seems entirely too sudden.
At times the plot mechanisms show through, particularly when Abigail
fails to examine what she knows is likely to be a vital piece of
evidence for a couple of days, apparently for the sole reason that it
would break the suspense if she were allowed to extract its clue too
soon. There does come a point where someone is so achingly and
obviously the Least Obvious Suspect that I found myself imploring
Hambly not to make him the murderer. (I shan't say whether she did,
and in any case it's all a little more complex than that.)
A theme emerges late in the book of the trouble caused by an
unquestioned leader, whether that's the King in England, Sam Adams of
the Sons of Liberty, or a charismatic preacher. I'd have liked to have
seen more development of this, but it's only really touched on
briefly.
Taken as a mystery I didn't find this particularly compelling, but I'd
recommend it if you have an especial fascination with
pre-Revolutionary America.
Followed by A Marked Man, though quite possibly not by me.
(This was a Requested Review: a loyal reader asked me for my thoughts
on this book. An offer open to all: supply me with a book, and I'll
either turn it down or review it.)
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