Sins of a Shaker Summer by Deborah Woodworth

 

First Line: "I'm thirsty," seven-year-old Betsy grumbled, plunking her cracked white teacup on the ground.

 

Sister Rose Callahan is slowly acclimating to being the new eldress of her community of Believers in Kentucky, even though Brother Wilhelm, the elder of the community, would like nothing better than to see her thrown out on her ear.

 

However politics and emotions should take a backseat when two little girls are poisoned. All signs point to the medicinal herb shop and the group of Believers recently arrived from another community who work there. Something isn't right, and Sister Rose is determined to find out what it is in order to keep the community she loves safe.

 

~

 

Deborah Woodworth's historical series featuring Sister Rose Callahan is one that I've enjoyed from the first book, Death of a Winter Shaker. One of my cherished memories is of visiting Pleasant Hill, a Shaker community in Kentucky when I was sixteen. I found the history of the Shakers and their accomplishments fascinating, and I still do. The second Sister Rose Callahan starts walking the streets and paths of her community, I am immediately transported to Pleasant Hill.

 

Woodworth's research is impeccable, and she weaves it all seamlessly into her story. There's no feeling that you've been thrown into history class and are about to face a pop quiz. 

 

The mystery in Sins of a Shaker Summer is a good one. Readers are quickly drawn to the new group of Believers who arrived from another community. They're secretive, don't talk much, and they seem to be conducting strange experiments in the medicinal herb shop, which is one of the many ways the Believers earn money. But what exactly is going on, and which one of the newcomers is responsible? This takes some work to figure out.

 

But no matter how strong the mystery is or how wonderful the sense of place and time is, the story isn't going to shine unless the characters do. The characters shine in this book. Sister Rose is a conscientious, compassionate woman who wants everything in her community to run well and for everyone to be healthy and happy. She also is a first-rate investigator. Brother Wilhelm, the other person in charge is a rabid fundamentalist. He wants everything like it was in the Good Old Days, and he believes Rose is too modern and should be thrown out of the community. Wilhelm wants to ignore the outside world even though the Shakers must rely on non-Believers to buy their goods and for converts to their faith.

There are also other dynamics among the characters. Newcomer Sister Patience is causing concern and divisiveness with her visions and pronouncements, and it's up to Sister Rose to find out if the woman is a true visionary or a fraud. And... looming over the entire community is the outside world. Everyone is suffering through the Depression, and when any little thing goes wrong, there must be someone to blame. For those living outside the Shaker community, the best scapegoats are always the Believers. They're weird. They believe in celibacy. Their religious services sometimes look like a circus sideshow. Yes, the Believers are very easy to blame for anything that goes wrong, and it's this attitude that brings a very real sense of menace to Sins of a Shaker Summer and the other books in the series.

If you're in the mood for a historical mystery that will transport you to another time and place, one with a strong mystery and even stronger characters, I recommend Deborah Woodworth's Sister Rose Callahan series. It's been one of my "go-to" series from the very first book.

Sins of a Shaker Summer by Deborah Woodworth

ISBN: ‎ 0739401394

Avon Books © 1999

Hardcover, 261 pages

 

Historical Mystery, #3 Sister Rose Callahan mystery

Rating: B+

Source: Paperback Swap 

A Deadly Shaker Spring by Deborah Woodworth

First Line: We buried her this afternoon, my sister, my heart.

It's 1937, and much of the United States is still firmly in the grip of the Depression. Times are hard, and emotions are high, especially in the small community of Languor, Kentucky. People are tired of doing without, and they need a scapegoat to help them feel better. When people with ulterior motives and carefully planned agendas come to town, they play people's fears like a well-tuned orchestra.

As a result, ominous things begin to happen in the Shaker community of North Homage. A sister suffers a mysterious head wound, a sackful of rats is set loose in the schoolhouse, food is stolen, buildings are defaced, and hate-filled messages point to a very real threat of violence. It is up to Sister Rose Callahan to set everything straight, and the new eldress of the community begins to find clues in the journals of her predecessor. The threats come from within North Homage and from without, and they combine both old and new secrets. With that threat of violence hanging over the peaceful religious community, Sister Rose must work fast.

The trouble with reading so many series is the fact that some are bound to fall by the wayside. Before I began my book blog, I read the first Sister Rose Callahan mystery, Death of a Winter Shaker, and I really enjoyed it. As a teenager, I once visited the Shaker community of Pleasant Hill, Kentucky, and learned how fascinating the Shakers were. Besides their gorgeous furniture, they were quite innovative in architecture, interior design, agriculture, and labor-saving devices. Since they were celibate, their communities depended on converts and orphans to survive and thrive. Woodworth's series is set when most Shaker villages had died out. The first book took up the topic of "winter Shakers"-- those homeless people who would convert to Shakerism during the winter so they would have food, clothing, and shelter, only to leave when spring came. This second book focuses on intolerance, a theme that is very pertinent today.

Sister Rose Callahan is a woman who was brought up as a Shaker but lived out in the world for a short period of time, so she's more than capable of dealing with non-believers. But with the shortage of members, she's had to assume the role of eldress-- caring for the spiritual health of the female members of the community-- as well as trustee-- the person who takes care of the financial side of things. This wouldn't be an easy task for anyone, but it's particularly tough for Sister Rose, since Elder Wilhelm is a thorn in her side, constantly harping about the good old days and completely unwilling to deal with the problems of the present in any real meaningful way.

As in the first book, A Deadly Shaker Spring has a marvelous sense of place and culture. You really don't need to know a thing about the Shakers to understand what's going on. If you do know about them-- like I do-- your knowledge will be enhanced. Since readers will know the person (or persons) responsible, this mystery isn't a whodunit, but a whydunit, and although I did find one character's conversion at the end to be too quick to be completely believable, I still found this to be an excellent read. Even after more than ten years between reading the first book and the second, I immediately fell back in with the characters, and that, to me, is a sign of how good Deborah Woodworth's writing is. I'm glad I have all the books in the series waiting for me. They are "reading money" in the bank.

A Deadly Shaker Spring by Deborah Woodworth

ISBN: 0380792036

Avon Books © 1998

Mass Market Paperback, 304 pages

Historical Mystery, #2 Sister Rose Callahan mystery

Rating: A

Source: Purchased from Alibris.


 

Celebrating Mysteries: A Bit of Clerical Potpourri

My celebration of Church Library Month concludes this week with a bit of clerical potpourri: Quakers, Shakers, a rabbi, and a member of the Vatican's secret service.

It's been a fun and interesting month, and-- like all the other months-- I've found myself adding to my to-be-read shelves and to my wishlist. I hope you have, too!

This subgenre is such an interesting juxtaposition of faith and crime that it's no wonder it's very popular. In a way I suppose you could call it the ultimate fight between Good and Evil-- men and women of the cloth versus those who think nothing of breaking the laws of God and man.

Before we get started with this week's featured authors and books, I'd like to mention an excellent resource I discovered while researching information on this subgenre: Philip Grosset's Clerical Detectives. If this subgenre interests you, I strongly recommend that you visit his website!

Irene Allen

Irene Allen is the pen name of Dr. E. Kirsten Peters, a former faculty member in Washington State University's Department of Geology (where she was known as the Rock Doc). She holds degrees from both Yale and Harvard. She is a practicing Quaker, and under her pen name, she's published four mysteries featuring Elizabeth Elliot, a sixty-something widowed Quaker meeting clerk in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The books in the series are: Quaker Silence (1992) -- sitting on my to-be-read shelves; Quaker Witness (1993); Quaker Testimony (1996); and Quaker Indictment (1998).

Here is what Publishers Weekly had to say about Quaker Silence:

Reflection rather than heart-pounding action marks this subdued and sober first mystery by the pseudonymous Allen. When a devout member of the Society of Friends in Cambridge, Mass., is murdered, other members of the community confront volatile, timely issues, including homelessness and sexual preference. As the Clerk of the Friends Meeting, 66-year-old widow Elizabeth Elliot moderates Quaker gatherings and informally counsels her peers. It is she who encourages them to accept a homeless man at the weekly services of silent prayer, and she who calmly presides over a vigorous debate about whether to recognize homosexual marriage as valid. The murder victim was a wealthy Quaker businessman who was opposed to gay unions; his announcement that he planned to revise his will , made at a Sunday meeting shortly before his death, suggests that the killer is a Quaker. Saddened by events and determined to see justice served, Elizabeth methodically investigates, a process involving discussing the crime over tea with friends and suspects. This mellow, well-orchestrated debut may seem tame to readers accustomed to violence and displays of intense emotion. 

Harry Kemelman

Harry Kemelman was a professor of English and the creator of one of the most famous religious sleuths, Rabbi David Small. Growing up in my village library, I clearly remember just how popular his mysteries were.

Rabbi David Small did his sleuthing in Barnard's Crossing, Massachusetts. There are eleven books in the series, and they were published between 1964 and 1996. The first three are: Friday the Rabbi Slept Late (1964), Saturday the Rabbi Went Hungry (1966), and Sunday the Rabbi Stayed Home (1969).

Here's a brief synopsis of Friday the Rabbi Slept Late from Library Journal:

Kemelman's 1964 mystery launched the Rabbi David Small series and snagged an Edgar for best first novel. The plot finds the rabbi investigating the murder of a nanny no more than a stone's throw from his synagogue. His investigation, however, turns up heaps of evidence pointing to the killer's being him.

Deborah Woodworth

Deborah Woodworth had a southern Ohio childhood, near the abandoned sites of several Shaker communities, followed by a Sociology of Religion Ph.D., which inspired her to create a Shaker mystery series set in Depression-era Kentucky.

As a teenager, I visited the Shaker community of Pleasant Hill in Kentucky. I fell in love with the place, so the setting and the religious sect both led me to start reading (and enjoying) this series.

In it, Sister Rose Callahan, eldress of a dwindling Shaker village, does the sleuthing, often with the energetic assistance of her young friend, Gennie Malone, an orphan brought up by the Shakers. There are six books in the series. The first three are: Death of a Winter Shaker (1997), A Deadly Shaker Spring (1998), and Sins of a Shaker Summer (1999).

Here is a synopsis of Death of a Winter Shaker:

The peaceful Shakers, pledged to hard work, worship and nonviolence could scarcely believe there was a dead body in their herb house. The handsome young drifter known as a "Winter Shaker" had professed to be a Believer to find refuge from the cold and the Depression. Now he'd gotten himself murdered.


Shaker Sister Rose Callahan, with her practical knowledge and worldly experience is assigned to find answers the sheriff refuses to consider-even if it mean discovering one of their own is the killer. But to protect a declining Shaker population, Rose must keep the sinful details hidden from the outside world. What the good Sister uncovers among the brethren are more than a tad of Earthly temptations, some un-Godly rivalry, and enough shameful secrets to raise havoc among the faithful...and to tempt some misguided soul to commit the most diabolical sin of all.

Juan Gómez-Jurado

Juan Gómez-Jurado is an award winning journalist and best selling author. He is one of the most successful contemporary Spanish authors of all time.

He is the creator of Anthony Fowler, a former priest, CIA operative, and member of the Vatican's secret service.

There are currently three books in the series: God's Spy (2007), The Moses Expedition (2010), and The Traitor's Emblem (2011).

Booklist says this about God's Spy:

Italian police inspector and profiler Paola Dicanti is not one to shrink from a challenge. But she's never been up against the likes of Victor Karosky. The American priest is on a mission to murder and mutilate cardinals who have arrived in Vatican City to elect a new pope in the wake of John Paul II's death. Though Karosky's identity is revealed early on, it doesn't lessen the suspense of Spanish writer Gomez-Jurado's riveting debut. He deftly weaves together the perspectives of perpetrator and pursuers alike: cold-blooded Karosky, a sexually abused child who has become a deeply dysfunctional adult; temperamental Inspector Dicanti, forever butting heads with the territorial and often pompous Vatican City police; and enigmatic priest and former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer Anthony Fowler, whose knowledge of Karosky proves pivotal to the case. The action unfolds against the backdrop of Vatican City, where countless pilgrims have gathered, wholly unaware of the heinous crimes taking place.

I hope you've enjoyed this month's theme for Celebrating Mysteries. Join me next weekend when a whole new theme begins!