In the newest Will Rees mystery, I look at several serious themes. One is PTSD. Although not called that in 1802, or for almost three centuries afterward, I am sure that it existed. We know that ‘battle fatigue’ was PTSD. (In WWI, women went around handing white feathers for cowardice to able-bodied men home from war, no doubt making already traumatized men feel worse.)

I remember working with a patron at a library in the nineties. A car backfiring outside caused the man to drop to the floor in reaction. He was the right age to be a Vietnam vet. It was scary for all of us, especially him. His wife had to come and collect him.

In The Long Shadow of Murder, we discover that Rees joined the Continental Army when he was sixteen and served at Jockey Hollow and Valley Forge, both of which have come down to us as beyond terrible. Ephraim Sewell, a young man who is considering joining the Shakers, was even younger, following his brother into war at eleven.

Both are haunted by their wartime experiences. Although Rees has managed to put the memories aside and move forward with a wife and family, Ephraim still has nightmares. The stew of grief and guilt has kept him fixed at that point in time and cost him his family and his farm.

Other characters are also suffering. One from events that occur in A Murder on Principle; the other from the behavior of the British soldiers during the Revolutionary War. As I describe, they took everything they could, stealing chicken and livestock, commandeered people’s houses, and raped women. The resentment felt by the colonists increased accordingly.

TSDAlthough the Revolutionary War happened twenty five years before the action in Long Shadow, and the murder in this novel, the trauma experienced by the different characters continue to affect, not only the characters themselves, but also all the people around them.