Murder on Principle

by Eleanor Kuhns

Overview

Will Rees faces a moral dilemma when a slaveholder is murdered while attempting to recapture a former slave: should he pursue lawful justice or should he let the killer go free? November 1800, Maine. After helping their long-time friend Tobias escort his wife, along with a liberated slave and her child, from the Great Dismal back to Durham, Will and Lydia Rees’s lives are interrupted when a dead body is found near their home. The body is that of Mr Gilbert, a slaveholder from the Great Dismal. Was he murdered in pursuit of the former slaves? When it’s discovered Gilbert was infected with smallpox, and Gilbert’s sister arrives demanding justice and the return of her absconded slaves, Will is torn. Finding the killer could lead to the recapture of the former slaves. Letting them go free could result in a false arrest and endanger the Durham community. Will must make a choice . . .

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781448305360
Publisher:	Severn House
Publication date:	07/01/2021
Series:	A Will Rees Mystery , #10
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Eleanor Kuhns is the 2011 winner of the Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel competition for A Simple Murder. The author of nine previous Will Rees mysteries, she is now a full-time writer after a successful career as the Assistant Director at the Goshen Public Library in Orange County, New York. www.eleanor-kuhns.com

Editorial Reviews

06/07/2021

In Kuhns’s tense 10th outing for Will Rees, a weaver in late 18th-century Maine, repercussions follow from a recent trip south Rees and his wife made in 2021’s Death in the Great Dismal. In Virginia, they rescued a Black woman, an old friend of theirs, from slavers—and freed two other slaves, a young woman, Sandy , and her infant son, who accompanied them back to Maine. When a stabbed and strangled body is found on the Rees farm, Constable Rouge identifies the victim as Randolph Gilbert, a Virginian looking for Sandy and her child, who belonged to Gilbert’s sister, Charlotte Sechrest. The stakes rise when Sechrest shows up with some slave catchers and has them search the Rees home for her quarry. Sechrest, who notes Rees resembles the man described as having taken her slaves, accuses him of her brother’s murder. When Rouge falls ill from smallpox, he makes Rees acting constable, putting the weaver in a difficult position. The intricate plot builds to a satisfying resolution. This sobering look at the cultural divide over slavery in the early days of the Republic deserves a wide audience. Agent: Mitchell S. Waters, Brandt & Hochman. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

This continuation of the story of Will Rees and his family stands on its own, probing issues of race relations and religion in our early republic -  Booklist

 

A complex mystery that focuses on the institutional racism still sadly ingrained in the nation’s psyche - Kirkus Reviews

This sobering look at the cultural divide over slavery in the early days of the Republic deserves a wide audience - Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

2021-05-19
As Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams battle for the presidency, slave catchers roam as far as Maine to ply a sordid but legal trade.

Weaver Will Rees, who’s lent a hand to Constable Rouge in the past, can’t refuse when Rouge asks for help investigating the murder of a man found in the woods by Brother Jonathan, Elder at Zion, during his search for a cow missing from the Shaker herd. Rouge, who runs an inn, knows the dead man as Randolph Gilbert, who’s hunting escaped slaves. Rees has been no friend of slave catchers ever since he and his wife, Lydia, journeyed south to help his friend Tobias, a free Black man, rescue his wife, Ruth, who had been abducted by slave catchers and sold in Virginia. When they all returned to Maine, they brought with them Sandy, an escaped slave who could pass for White, and her baby, Abram. Soon Gilbert’s boss, a vengeful young Southern lady, turns up with more slave catchers and a burning hatred for Sandy. Gilbert was strangled and stabbed but also had smallpox, a grave danger to the small community. The local doctor’s nephew has recently returned from Edinburgh, where he learned to vaccinate with cowpox, and Rees inoculates his family with the aid of a friend who currently has cowpox. When Rouge falls ill, he begs Rees to take over his job. After a second slave catcher is murdered, Rees is caught between his abhorrence for the slave trade and his reverence for the law.

A complex mystery that focuses on the institutional racism still sadly ingrained in the nation’s psyche.

Kirkus Reviews