Review: A Simple Shaker Murder

A Simple Shaker Murder Amazon US PB Amazon Canada PB
Deborah Woodworth
Class/Genre: Mystery Historical Religious Fiction Ethnic
Series: Sister Rose Callahan # 4
Avon Mystery; Apr. 2000; $5.99; 224 pp

Take one tortured father, one deeply troubled child, and add them to a small closed community called the North Homage Shaker community, sometime in the mid-thirties, somewhere in northern Kentucky. Now add an odd group of utopians calling themselves the New Owenites. It is a recipe for sudden death.

Saint Paul author Deborah Woodworth has, for the fourth time, presented mystery readers with an excellent mystery novel about the people who inhabit the fictional but very real Shaker community of North Homage. Periodically over the years in the United States, there have arisen a variety of religious and idealized societies, many of which were established and soon faded to become footnotes in history. Others persevered or made their mark on American culture and mores in various ways. Such are the Mennonites, the Shakers, Hutterites, the Ammana colony, and the Owenites, who espoused particular educational beliefs.

Woodworth has used her academic background in religious sociology to excellent effect in her series which features Sister Rose Callahan, a Shaker woman who combines the skills of a born administrator and a questioning mind with her strong religious belief to lead the community of North Homage, and to solve crimes.

Callahan is an excellent character, as are most of the other inhabitants of the community. Woolworth’s skills as a writer continue to develop and she weaves this simple yet complex plot into a story that will challenge the reader to figure out the murder and the ending.

The New Owenites have come to North Homage to study Shaker beliefs and the daily applications of their doctrine. In part they are there to learn, but also, apparently desire to shape themselves and perhaps their Shaker hosts into something else altogether. Conflict inevitably rises between the two societies and when a New Owenite is found hanging from a tree in the orchard, emotions swirl out of control.

While the police are quick to rule the hanging a suicide, Sister Rose is not so sure and when she discovers a disturbed child nearby, a child who may have witnessed the death, Sister Rose is moved to action, not only in her attempt to discover the truth of the man’s death, but to save the child as well. The solutions will delight you.

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Carl Brookins - RAM

Book Review: A Simple Shaker Murder