Customer Reviews

The Ninth Daughter (An Abigail Adams Mystery)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have had a longstanding passion for John and Abigail Adams and the colonial period in general. This wonderful mystery has everything--details of the times, a great sense of the complexity and ambiguity of the politics of revolution, a well constructed mystery, and resonance between the present and the past. Abigail is an indominable feminist, but within the context of her times. The characters are as real to me as John Adams was after reading McCullough's biography. This was a great read!

Barbara Hamilton has written a wonderful book to kick off her new mystery series. "The Ninth Daughter," set in Massachusetts in the 1770's, is a book about a serial killer loose in Boston and its environs, a case where a smart and somewhat progressive woman is the sleuth. That woman is Abigail Adams, the wife of John Adams, who will be the second president of the United States. With Abigail as protagonist, the novel introduces a handful of other illustrious Colonial Americans: Tories and Whigs, Colonials and Royals, Calvinists and Catholics, etc.

The strength of this novel, in my opinion, is its historical accuracy and the delightful unfolding of the plot and its back stories. The story begins on the eve of the revolution and key players are representatives from the Crown and the "Sons of Liberty" (John Adams, Paul Revere, et al.). We are treated to visits to a small village a day away from Boston inhabited by Christian fundamentalists and see the protestant hatred for "papists". The Abigail Adams of this book relates well to a great variety of people sometimes using her gender as a buffer against hostility. Her friendship with a Redcoat Lieutenant and his Sergeant allow her a source, sometimes entre, to clues in solving the murders. Those characters sometimes are a backdrop when her husband (a prominent member of the Sons of Liberty) is in the room. Author Hamilton weaves these personalities and their points of view together in a living drama with great finesse and the real "feelings" of a nation in turmoil. We are aware that the preparation for the famous Boston Tea Party is a constant background throughout the book.

It is, however, how the book "works" as a novel that is the proof of the pudding in historical fiction. I admire the way in which author Hamilton crafted this book, i.e., sentence structure and the historical authenticity of language. Ms. Hamilton uses language to great advantage in that way. This is a book in which you'll frequently look away from the page and think, "what a great way to say that": e.g.,"with an Irish brogue that could have been cut like cheese with a wire;" "yet outside of Boston, the veneer of England vanished like an early frost," and "Wind as sharp as broken oyster shells." There are just a few of the many many examples of figurative language that keeps the prose so fresh and imaginative.

The denouement, the ending solutions, are so hidden and surprising, you'll be amazed at that twist, too. "The Ninth Daughter" by Barbara Hamilton is a great new book and I look forward to the next in the series. If you like American Colonial Historical Fiction, this is one that should be next on your reading list.

Barbara Hamilton sets her first in a series of historical mysteries, The Ninth Daughter, right in the middle of an emerging new nation in revolutionary Boston. All the historical figures are placed in this setting including Sam Adams, Paul Revere, John Adams and of course Abigail Adams. The Sons of Liberty, a secret group fighting against the taxation of the British and for their freedom play a prominent role in this enjoyable mystery. Abigail Adams on her way to visit a friend, Rebecca, who is associated with helping the Sons of Liberty group, discovers Rebecca missing and the body of a dead woman. The woman is later identified as Perdita Pentyre, the mistress of a British Colonel. What was she doing at Rebecca's place of residence? What happened to the list of the members of the Sons of Liberty and their aliases? When Abigail's husband, John, is accused of the murder Abigail must use her acute observation powers and do everything possible to find the murderer and her friend Rebecca. Barbara Hamilton's first in this series of historical mysteries will leave you looking forward to the next book, especially if you are an aficionado of the Revolutionary Period in our history and Abigail Adams.

This book is written by a seasoned pro, Barbara Hambly, under a new name, so I don't feel guilty about complaining a little.

It's an excellent cosy with a fine sense of historical place. You can see -- and smell -- pre-Revolutionary Boston from the very first sentence.

At the same time, it's a twentieth-century serial killer novel dumped into the eighteenth century. Though there are no blatant anachronisms, the characters speak of what "the killer" would do, discuss (in other language) how serial murderers can't quit, and freak out about cults of religious fanatics in a modern urban agnostic -- not an eighteenth century deistic -- way.

MILD SPOILERS FOLLOW

On at least two occasions the plot is forced to the point of near-explosion. Early on Abigail Adams is caught burglarizing the home of a self-righteous Tory, with the help of his own house slave. Because she has turned up some letters that show the owner trusted his daughter too much, he spares both Adams and the slave, and indeed changes his entire character just because the plot needs him to do that. Later on, Abigail Adams wanders through a dreadful wilderness in a way no woman of her class, feminist or not, could have managed. The author barely mentions what clothes Adams is wearing; if the clothes had been focused on, Abigail Adams's trudge through dark, wet woods in them would have appeared even more absurd than it does.

Meanwhile, with the Boston Tea Party coming up and every main American character in the book under suspicion of capital sedition, Adams and a conveniently plot-forced British lieutenant investigage a murder as if they were partners on CSI or LAW AND ORDER. There is no way in heck the murder investigation (which the author is right in saying would be the official concern of the military or no one) would not have been put on the back burner while the lieutenant decided if his "partner" -- Abigail Adams -- should be served tea or sent directly to jail.

The author ducks or works around all these problems intelligently, and it's pleasant to feel old Boston and see the cosy crime get solved. But the plot-carpentry is always obvious, and every time the reader sees it, the plot gets boring. That's the problem with most cosies, if not with all of them, so I can't complain too much, and I still think the book is worth three stars. I liked it better when I thought it was a professional historian's first try at a mystery novel. As a seasoned genre novelist's work, it's a tiny touch cynical.

I was very excited about a new historical mystery series, especially one featuring the wonderful Abigail Adams as a mystery sluth, trying to clear her husband's name in a serial murder investigation. There were aspects of the book that were very well done, including a detailed and seemingly accurate picture of life in colonial America. The character of Abigail was also well-drawn -- she was just as she has been portrayed in the recent biography of her husband, and in her letters. However, that for me did not make up for an overly convoluted plot with what seemed to be a cast of hundreds -- I sometimes had difficultly keeping the characters straight, which normally doesn't happen to me. I also found that the murder of Perdita Pentyre was of minimal interest -- eventually, I stopped reading and skimmed the book to the end, where the identity of the murderer turned out to not be a surprise, and was my prediction about half way through the book. In subsequent books my suggestion to the author is to emphasize the historical aspects and make the mystery more of a minor diversion.

Abigail Adams arrives at the home of Rebecca Malvern and knows immediately, frighteningly, that something is wrong. Rebecca, a woman who contributes to the causes of the Sons of Liberty, and who lives in poverty since being driven away from her wealthy husband by his jealous children, has vanished and another woman is murdered and horribly mutilated in her kitchen. Later the Sons of Liberty cover up the murder evidence because Rebecca knew too many secrets about them--and John Adams himself becomes one of the suspects in the murder. It is up to Abigail and British Lieutenant Coldstone to find the murderer as well as Rebecca--if the latter is still alive.

Despite some of the slightly improbable situations Abigail is involved in, including scoping out a strict religious colony with faithful Sergeant Muldoon, Hamilton brings daily life in Revolutionary-era Boston and the outlying towns of Massachusetts Bay come alive. Aspects of everyday living, politics, and religion are vividly portrayed. Hamilton's Boston is populated by characters both good and bad, some facing universal problems: people who marry into a family who resent them, spoiled children, abusive religious leaders, adults with problem parents. She creates British characters who are fully realized, not just two-dimensional enemies of those who seek a break with the British monarchy. Abigail is also an appealing protagonist who must juggle her investigations, her friendships, her household duties, and her role as wife and mother.

Please note that this book, while looking like a "cozy" because of its setting and protagonist, does contain some strong, unflinching scenes of violence.

First in a new series is Barbara Hamilton's THE NINTH DAUGHTER, set in Massachusetts in 1773 and telling of Abigail, who visits a fellow patriot friend only to find a dead woman in her kitchen and her friend missing. A secret Sons of Liberty document leads to a search for clues to the murder in this fine historical mystery. A fine pick for lending libraries strong in murder mysteries.

In 1773, the Sons of Liberty demand representation in England's Parliament and a say in running the colonies that they consider a country. They are preventing a ship containing tea imported by the West Indian Company from unloading. Abigail Adams is at the periphery of the standoff as her spouse John is one of the leaders of the tea boycott. She visits her friend Rebecca Malvern, who tells her that her husband abuses her.

Abigail finds a corpse of a woman on the kitchen floor. Before she goes for help, she notices Sons of Liberty items everywhere. John and his brother Sam arrive to clean up the mess; the victim is Perdita Pentyre married to a wealthy merchant and mistress to the colonial governor. Rebecca is missing and Abigail believes she has been abducted. She intends to find her friend as does Sam who believes Rebecca possesses a ledger containing the names of the Sons of Liberty in other colonies and the cipher which is used to communicate with them. As her husband is accused of murder, her inquiry takes her into the worst sections of Boston where homicide is a daily activity.

Barbara Hamilton writes a super Revolutionary War era Massachusetts Bay Colony amateur sleuth starring real historical figures who fans the flames of revolt two years before the "shot hear round the world" (Emerson's usage and not that of Bobby Thompson). The mystery is well crafted even though the audience knows John is obviously not the killer since this is not an alternate historical. The story line provides a deep look at Boston as rebellion is in the air. Fans will want to join the tea party hosted by Ms. Hamilton with guests being a who's who of Colonial Massachusetts.

Harriet Klausner

I loved Barbara Hambly's historical novels, The Emancipator's Wife (about Mary Todd Lincoln) and Patriot Hearts, which was in many ways a seduction into the life of Abigail Adams. I'd read some of Adams's letters to her children, full of wit and wisdom, not to mention compassion and an intriguing perspective on the events surrounding the American Revolution and establishment of the United States. The Ninth Daughter, under the guise of a fictional murder mystery, offers as well a beautifully wrought, richly detailed vision of life in Colonial Boston. The plot itself involves not only the expected crime and politically motivated cover-up, spies and counter-spies, the legacy of Puritanism (the reference to the nine daughter of Eve, each more sinful than the first), the Sons of Liberty and the run-up to the Boston Tea Party, but the details of daily life and personal relationships that make the characters and their times truly come alive.

I love historical mysteries, and I especially enjoyed this one. I love how the author has brought in a prominent historical figure to do the sleuthing and after living in Boston for many years, it's also fun to try to think about what the city was like during this period.