Customer Reviews

QUAKER TESTIMONY

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I love reading mysteries, but am often troubled by the situations and the content. I stumbled on Irene Allen's book, Quaker Testimony, at MacIntyre's Fine Books and Bookends at the Village of Fearrington, near Chapel Hill, NC (a wonderful bookstore, by the way). This book tells a good story, reveals some very interesting and very deep characters, and touches on some extremely important issues for our time -- like the place of faith in our lives, the importance and role of faith communities, and the need to accept our brothers and sisters in faith at their word and support their convictions, even when we don't always share them ourselves. The main character, Elisabeth Elliot, is the Clerk of the Quaker Meeting in Cambridge, MA. She is in her 60s, a widow, and a very thoughtful, caring, yet sober and "good" character, in every sense of the word. She has strong convictions and isn't timid about sharing them when necessary. But she does so in a sensitive and compassionate way, with very positive results. I hope this books finds a wide readership among people who enjoy a good mystery but who can't stomach the harshness of writers like Patricia Cornwell all the time.

This is the 3rd Quaker Mystery that I have read by Irene Allen! It is a wonderful book dealing with real life Quaker issues! I felt it was a refreshing twist on your typical mystery. I am looking forward to reading her next one - Quaker Indictment. I am Quaker and the religious aspects of the book are true to the religion! It also was a fun book to read!! I hope others will read Irene Allens Quaker Mysteries!

As a British Quaker, this book was of considerable interest to me. The picture it portrays of American Quaker life was a surprise in some ways - the intensity of the faith and the faithfulness of daily behaviour struck me as extremely 'other worldly'. Elizabeth is a likeable woman, and concern for her kept me reading. However, the actual mystery was very predictable almost from the first, and the somewhat contrived accumulation of accident, would-be suicide and ultimate detection is not especially well structured. It is, however, courageous to write about murder amongst Quakers, and the Peace Testimony is very well explored, in the light of imperfect human beings, and their capacity for sin and self-deception. Rebecca Tope

Elizabeth Elliot of Cambridge, Massachusetts is Clerk of New England's largest Quaker Meeting. Elizabeth, age 67, and Neil Stevenson have been keeping each other company for several years and are at the point in their relationship where it needed to deepen or things would wither.

The clerk finds Hope Laughton dead in her own house. The house was about to become subject to forfeiture because Hope and her husband Sheldon are tax resisters. In the book it is noted that Daniel Boorstin, historian, has suggested that Quakers were hardened against the ordinary accommodations of the world and thus had minimal political influence.

After Elizabeth's entry to the house, federal agents appeared and summoned the police to attend to the matter of the dead woman. In a twenty four hour period Elizabeth is charged with murder and subject to jailing. Suspicion also falls upon Sheldon. As Clerk of the Meeting Elizabeth has a leadership position which she feels called upon to exercise. The result is that she runs down some investigative leads, thereby giving the reader a sense of the peculiarities of some of the individual members of the meeting. She feels overwhelmed by the burdens of the Quaker tesitmony to nonviolence.

Self-justification and rationalization are as deeply embedded in Quakers as in Baptists and Methodists. Elizabeth's correspondance with her college roommate details an instance of clergy abuse of considerable pain to the roommate. After much travail Elizabeth and Neil go to Walden Pond. The solution to the mystery is yielded to in the end as Sheldon discloses to Elizabeth his new faith in Catholicism. Neil and Elizabeth do become closer to each other as family visits and marriage are planned.

The author does a nice job describing a religious group.

Elizabeth Elliot, protagonist of Quaker Testimony by Irene Allen, is the Clerk of a Quaker Meeting in Boston. At the center of this book is the question of what one must do when one's beliefs clash with the compromises most of us find necessary to live in modern society. The secondary question is how a community deals with those who choose to live by their beliefs when those beliefs appear to threaten some in that society. One Quaker family takes literally the teaching about war and refuses to pay that portion of their income taxes which goes to the military. Instead they donate this money to a society promoting peace. (As chapter introductions Ms. Allen includes statements of belief and action from various Quaker authorities.) The IRS is prepared to seize their last asset, their home, but the wife, Hope, is murdered before this can happen. Elizabeth is a suspect at first, and she feels compelled to investigate because this murder could bring dishonor upon the whole Quaker community. Elizabeth is a very believable character, independent, almost prickly with anyone who threatens or challenges her independence, but fully aware that at age 67 there are many things she physically cannot do. The story is very interesting and the dilemma a very real one. My only quarrel with the book is the style of writing. Ms. Allen, I think, tells too many of the quotidian activities of each day, things I do not need to know in order to enjoy the story, know the characters and understand the crime. The details sometimes slow the story down and pull me out of what is happening. I become aware that I am reading a story, not living it. In spite of this, I recommend the book for it forces the reader to think about the compromises we make between what we believe and what we must do in order to live in this world

Quaker Testimony is one of those mysteries that seems more about what the people do and feel than about the crime and its solution. It reads smoothly enough, with the exception of several lines and thoughts that are repeated too often, and the crime is human enough. Unlike much mystery fiction today, this one has a minimum of blood and gore. The characters are likable, if somewhat dispassionate.

Given one or two other reviews by other Quakers, one has to wonder how much of the detail about the life of Friends is depicted accurately in this book. There are bound to be some differences, of course, depending on where the Meeting is located. The reader should not totally depend on this story to give a totally accurate depiction of that way of life. The beliefs being at the center of the mystery does make this a unique series, though.

For the reader who likes a relatively quiet mystery, with no real threat to the protagonist, Allen writes an adequate tale. It is readable and fast, and somewhat satisfying. Readers who like Allen's novels might also like those of Rita Mae Brown, set in Albemarle County, Va., especially the early books in the series.

One of the things I like about the Society of Friends is that no one can claim to speak for it, and that includes me. However, I have found all this author's works to be different from any Quakerism I've experienced. It's possible that she's speaking from real experiences that I don't share, but I wince to think that we're being encountered through these books by people who will never encounter us in any other way.