When we first meet Will Rees in A Simple Murder, he is pursuing his son to a nearby Shaker community.
David has run away from his aunt’s rough treatment. When the boy was eight, his mother died. Rees drops his son on his sister and leaves, ostensibly to pick up weaving jobs. The truth is, though, that Rees, besides grieving the devastating loss of his wife, is also dealing with a huge amount of guilt. He is running away. And David views that as abandonment and it takes many years, and a lot of work, before the estrangement is resolved.
Through the series, we see Rees evolve from an indifferent father, at best, to an engaged and caring father. In Cradle to Grave, he and Lydia adopt several orphaned children, increasing the number of children to six.
By the Long Shadow of Murder, Rees and Lydia have a little girl of their own and she is pregnant with another child.
And Jerusha, the eldest of the adopted kids, is now in her late teens and hoping to attend The Litchfield Female Academy to become a teacher. Although Rees would never crush her dream, he hopes Jerusha will stay home. He wants to keep his children close.
In my head, I imagined Rees’s evolving – growing up if you will – from a fairly self-centered man to a husband and father whose core is his family.
Simon Rouge, Will Rees’s frenemy in the Will Rees mysteries, is the Constable in the village. Why a constable? We don’t use that system in the United States.
Oh, but we did, once upon a time.
In the beginning, when Boston, New York and Philadelphia were just colonial villages, night watchmen and constables were appointed to keep the peace and provide law enforcement. Constables were, at first, generally unpaid or paid very poorly. Few people were interested in taking on a hazardous job with little pay and low status so the quality of those that did apply was poor.I imagine that little crime was prevented and few crimes were solved.
As the northern cities grew thanks to an influx of immigrants, and dealt with increasing crime, the southern states established patrols to control the large enslaved population.
The spread of people to the frontier created new problems for crime control. In 1789, the US Marshals were created as the first federal law enforcement agency. In1823, the Texas Rangers was formed to protect American settlers from Indian attack in the Mexican territory of Texas.
In 1790, only two US cities had populations over 25,000. By 1820, both New York and Philadelphia had populations of over 100,000. The ability of night watchmen and constables could not keep up.
So, where did our current system of policing come from? Well, just like the system of night watchmen and constables (and sheriffs too), the US copies the ‘modern’ police force of London’s Metropolitan Police force, set up by law in 1829. New York City is the first American city to set up a unified, prevention-oriented police force in 1845. In 1853 they adopted uniforms.
So, in the late 1700s and early 1800s, Rouge would still be a constable, poorly paid and with very little authority. This is also why he earns his living, not as a law enforcement officer, but as a tavern owner.
I thought I’d read all of the Holmes/Russell mysteries, only to discover this one; A Letter of Mary.
Mary Russell and her husband, retired detective Sherlock Holmes, receive an old friend and archaeologist at their Sussex estate. Dorothy Ruskin presents them with an old manuscript that she excavated in Palestine. It appears to be from Mary Magdalene and suggests she is one of Jesus’s apostles. The letter appears genuine but surely it couldn’t be. Could it?
Both Russell and Holmes are bored with their current lives and agree to look into the letter further. Then Dorothy Ruskin is murdered. Now the case suddenly achieves significant more importance. The game is afoot!
Although it is a bit of a stretch to imagine Sherlock Holmes married, these books work. I particularly enjoy the antiquated style Laurie King employs; it is so appropriate to the era. Besides, I love the archeological mysteries; Elizabeth Peters’ Amelia Peabody mysteries are still among my favorites.
This also has a clever mystery. Highly Recommended.
Will Rees, and many of the mysteries, are based in Maine. It is still the home of the last remaining Shaker community with living Shakers. At the time of Will Rees, Maine was part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In 1820, Maine voted to secede from Massachusetts and in the Missouri Compromise of that year, Maine entered the Union as a free state while Missouri joined as a slave state.
It is theorized that the Vikings interacted with the Penobscot tribe in 1000. If confirmed, it would make Maine the earliest site in the entire U.S. with European contact. The first confirmed contact was in 1604 with French explorers, many of whom gave their names to locations especially on Mount Desert Island; e.g Samuel Champlain. Despite its large geographical area, it is the least populous state east of the Mississippi.
Sabbathday Lake was the smallest and poorest of all the Shaker communities. However, it is still in operation in Alfred, Maine, although with only a few Shakers remaining.
Will Rees, the main character in my mystery The Long Shadow of Murder, is a traveling weaver, called factors. Like many professions then, weaving required an apprenticeship of about seven years. (This may explain the ‘Luddites”, many of them weavers who saw their professions disappearing.) About nine spinners were required to keep a weaver in business. And looms were big, heavy and expensive, hence the word heir-loom.
In colonial times, and stretching into the early USA, larger towns, like Williamsburg, had a resident professional weaver and cloth from overseas did come into the ports. Smaller towns might have a weaver who also farmed. The further away these towns were located, the less imported cloth the women had access to. In the beginning, this expensive cloth was expensive also although, as the Salem ships brought cloth from India, this cloth dropped in price. By 1802, when Long Shadow takes place, Rees is facing a huge drop in his business.
Besides the traveling weavers, other professions took to the roads. Some men made brooms. This was a craft the Shakers took on as well; they sold their wares which included brooms, whips, boxes and other items, from wagons. Tinkers, who not only sold pots and pans but mended them as well, were also a familiar sight.
In these agrarian times, the goal was to make enough money to buy a farm. Usually, once a man had a good farm, he settled, at least for most of the year. Although still a weaver, and a reluctant farmer, Rees has begun to focus more on the farm where he and Lydia and their children live.
Some of the accounts from the women married to such men speak poignantly of the loneliness and isolation, to say nothing of the struggles in keeping a farm going by themselves.
Had a great time at Mocha Lisa’s on Saturday evening with my fellow Mavens: Amy Patrica Meade, Frankie Bailey, Liz Irish, Chris Keefer, Jacqueline Boulden, and Shelley Jones. Great coffee, great pastries (just ask my husband) and a wonderful and engaged crowd. I also picked up some new books. Expect reviews.
This week I read The Last Wizard’s Ball, by Charlaine Harris. It is number six, and listed as the final volume in the series. I hope not since it ended on several cliffhangers.
Lizbeth Rose accompanies her sister Felicia to the Wizard’s ball in the Holy Russian Empire. The ball is similar to the Regency London season, a chance to see and be seen. Since Felicia is a powerful death wizard, and beautiful as well, she is much in demand. But, on one of their outings, someone fires an arrow which strikes Felix, another death wizard and Felicia’s mentor. Another attack occurs at a ball, and then another. At the same time, Lizbeth Rose experiences several odd conversations. What is going on?
War is brewing in Europe. It seems far away to Lizbeth but the Germans and Japanese are represented at these events, and they are desperate to add Felicia to their stable of wizards. Lizbeth realizes her husband and her sister are keeping secrets from her, serious, earth changing secrets. Then Felicia, who is only sixteen, does something so reckless, so dangerous, and so earth shattering, it changes everything.
Indigo is probably the most familiar dye in the world and has a long history of use. The first identified use is from 4000 years ago in Peru. Our word indigo, however, comes from a Greek root word meaning Indian dye since it was from India that indigo traveled to Europe via the Silk Road. The use of the dye quickly spread. From the Tuaregs in the Sahara to Cameroon, clothing dyed with indigo signified wealth.
Prior to the arrival of indigo in Europe, woad was the tradition dye. It produces a lighter blue. (One of the theories is that blue previously meant a shade similar to cyan.) In the New World, enslaved people were put to work cultivating indigo which became a significant cash crop. There were large plantations in South Carolina. (See Death of a Dyer.)
During the time of Will Rees, all of the yarn he worked with would have been dyed with these natural dyes. Indigo, by the way, was very expensive.
Indigo is not water soluable and so has to be treated to make it useable. One of the pre-industrial processes was soaking it in stale urine. Many accounts do not mention this particular fact but the pungency of the process is regularly described. (I used indigo a library program and when it was ‘curing’, it smelled so terrible, we all left the room.) The result is known as indigo white. Fabric dyed in the indigo white turns blue with oxidation. Indigo is also toxic so there is plenty of opportunity for indigo workers to become sick. And despite the processing, indigo fades slowly over time. Just take a look at your jeans. Denim is dyed with indigo and fades.
I saw items dyes with indigo in the highlands of Peru. The hanks of wool were all different colors from a light royal blue to such a deep blue it was almost navy. Truly beautiful colors.
Synthetic dyes have now almost taken over for indigo and the other natural dyes.
Murder in the Trembling Lands is the newest Benjamin January mystery by Barbara Hambly. It is Carnival time, and Ben is working asa musician at all the balls and fetes. He is therefore present when one man calls out another, accusing him of being an Octoroon instead of a white man. A duel ensues, and Ben is asked to attend as a physician.
One of the men, Corvallis, is shot. When Ben examines the body, he realizes the victim has been shot by a rifleman in the trees, not the other duelist. Moreover, the other man has recently had all his gambling debts paid off. So the murder of Corvallis was murder, and a carefully planned one as well.
Shortly thereafter, Ben is asked by his white stepbrother to search an old and abandoned plantation of something – papers or something else – by the daughter of a disgraced man who was accused of treason during the War of 1812. Ben, himself, fought in that war, primarily at the Chalmette Battlefield. In that battle, a large and professional army of British soldiers was defeated by Andrew Jackson’s hastily assembled army of volunteers, including the free blacks like Ben.
Now Ben has several tasks before the murder can be solved. He must discover what exactly happened during the War of 1812, and the battle at Chalmette. He has to help his step brother, and protect him from his foolishness. And, Ben has to accomplish all this while working, and trying to survive the men trying to kill him.
This is a rousing story with an intricate plot. But for me, the attraction is always the exotic culture of New Orleans during this time and the complication interpersonal relationships. The rules governing the whites, the free blacks, and the slaves are complicated to say the least. This is a society where the wealthy white planters choose placees, beautiful women of color, as their mistresses. Thus, it is common for the white children to have half-siblings from ‘the shady side of the street’. The white family demonstrate a variety of reactions to their darker family members, from complete acceptance to outright hatred. I certainly don’t blame the Americans, recent entries into this society, of being confused by the complex rules governing it.
I chose this mystery for the book discussion group at the library. We had a very lively discussion.
Olivia Watson moves into a house in Knightsbridge, New York. One night, she sees a man appear at her door and then disappear through a wall. After she sees him three more times, she speaks to him. He responds and they discover they are living in the same house, only, while Olivia is in 2014 Stephen Blackwell is in 1934. A detective on the police force, he is currently involved in investigating the murder of the bank manager and the theft of a significant amount of money.
His investigation proceeds as his relationship with Olivia progresses to a tentative friendship.
The settings, particularly the 1934 world, are wonderfully rendered. Some of the touches are really clever. They discover that they both know some of the same people. But Stephen knows Annabel, for example, as a fourteen-year-old, while Olive knows her as an old woman. Unsettling to say the least. Fun and thought provoking. Recommended.
I have been a fan of Barbara Hambly’s since she wrote fantasy and science fiction. (The series about the Dog Wizard is an especial favorite.) I love the Benjamin January books.
January is a free man of color in New Orleans. Although trained as a doctor, as a black man he is not allowed to practice so he supports his family as a musician.
In 1840, William Harry Harrison, an Indian fighter, was running for president. January pays only a little attention to politics but since the run up to a large rally in New Orleans is filled with balls and other events, he is busy playing. One day after a fist fight between two suitor for a beautiful flirt named Marie- Joyeuse Maginot, she is found murdered and the only black person there is promptly arrested. January immediately begins investigating to save his friend.
A story that begins with an attack on January by an escaped slave (for his clothes) ends with January racing across roofs to prevent an assassination.
As usual, Hambly’s mystery is excellent. But, also as usual, what strikes me most is the difficulty of living in a slave state as a free man. January always carries his papers, and even then risks being sold into slavery and possibly ending up in the cane fields. A smart man, he must hide his intelligence from the wealthy white men who hire him as a musician. This dynamic gives the Hambly mysteries an added dimension beyond the historical facts, great characters and wonderful puzzles.
