Cradle to Grave
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3.0 • 3 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Will Rees is adjusting to life on his Maine farm in 1797, but he's already hungering for the freedom of the road, and his chance to travel comes sooner than he expects. Lydia has just received a letter from her old friend Mouse, a soft-spoken and gentle woman who now lives in the Shaker community in Mount Unity, New York. To Lydia and Rees's astonishment, she's in trouble with the law. She's kidnapped five children, claiming that their mother, Maggie Whitney, is unfit to care for them.
Despite the wintry weather and icy roads, Rees and Lydia set out for New York, where they sadly conclude that Mouse is probably right and the children would be better off with her. There's nothing they can do for Mouse legally, though, and they reluctantly set out for home. But before they've travelled very far, they receive more startling news: Maggie Whitney has been found murdered, and Mouse is the prime suspect.
In Cradle to Grave, Eleanor Kuhns returns with the clever plotting, atmospheric historical detail, and complexly drawn characters that have delighted fans and critics in her previous books.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
At the start of Kuhns's intriguing third late-18th-century historical (after 2013's Death of a Dyer), traveling weaver Will Rees and his new wife, Lydia, leave their Maine farm for a wintry trip to the isolated village of Dover Springs, N.Y., where their Shaker friend, Sister Hannah, aka "Mouse," has been accused of kidnapping Maggie Whitney's five children after finding their mother too drunk to care for them. En route, Will and Lydia get word that Maggie has been murdered, probably by Mouse. On arrival in Dover Springs, Will struggles to pry information out of the close-mouthed residents, nearly all of whom prove to be hiding dreadful secrets. At times, the tribulations of the impoverished Whitney children threaten to overwhelm the story, but readers will sympathize with Will, whose interactions with the children spur deep guilt about how uninvolved he was in the raising of David, his grown son.
Customer Reviews
Cradle to grave
Another excellent book in the historical series. For the reader looking for the unusual murder mystery, search no further. These are beautifully written and researched, then carefully edited. Equally pleasant is they are murder mysteries quietly told without the usual violence and language unwanted by some.