5-Star Review of "Delivering the Truth"

Review of Delivering the Truth

Quaker Midwife Mystery #1

by Edith Maxwell

Quaker midwife Rose Carroll hears secrets and keeps con­fi­dences as she attends births of the rich and poor alike in an 1888 Massachusetts mill town. When the town’s world-famed car­riage indus­try is threat­ened by the work of an arson­ist, and a car­riage fac­tory owner’s adult son is stabbed to death with Rose's own knitting needle, she is drawn into solv­ing the mys­tery. Things get dicey after the same owner’s mis­tress is also mur­dered, leav­ing her one-week-old baby with­out a mother. The Quaker poet and abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier helps Rose by lending words of advice and support. While strug­gling with being less than the per­fect Friend, Rose draws on her strengths as a counselor and prob­lem solver to bring two mur­der­ers to justice before they destroy the town’s carriage industry and the people who run it.

MY REVIEW:   Rose Carroll specializes in bringing new life into the world, but all around her, people are dying.   While the local detective is investigating and assuring the community that he will find the killer and the arsonist, Rose feels compelled to give him a little help.   She tells him that she is inquisitive.   But we all know the saying, "curiosity killed the cat".   Reading about the practice of midwifery in the 1880's was very informative and extremely interesting.  Rose relies on her Quaker friend, who is also a poet and abolitionist, John Greenleaf Whittier, to advise and offer his wise counsel.   There is a bit of romance between Rose and the good doctor in town, David.   

              I feel that readers of historical fiction and mysteries will thoroughly enjoy this book as I did.  I was not overly familiar with the Quaker faith, even though I had read a little bit about it.   The characters in this story make the hard work of the times seem easy, but I'm sure they were not.  The sanitary conditions of the streets shocked me.  I didn't realize that lack of sanitation carried so far into our country's history.   

             I rated this book 5 stars and can hardly wait for the next book in the series.  This is my first book by Edith Maxwell and it won't be my last!  

             I received a copy of this book from netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

About the Author:

Edith Maxwell is an Agatha-nominated mystery author. MURDER MOST FOWL, book four in her Local Foods Mystery series, released in 2016. Edith once owned and operated the smallest certified-organic farm in Essex County, Massachusetts. 

Edith also writes the historical Quaker Midwife Mysteries. DELIVERING THE TRUTH, featuring a Quaker midwife sleuth in 1888, released in 2016. Edith is Clerk of Amesbury Friends Meeting. Her story, "A Questionable Death," was nominated for an Agatha Award for Best Short Story.

As Maddie Day, Edith writes the Country Store Mysteries set in southern Indiana. GRILLED FOR MURDER released in 2016.

BLUFFING IS MURDER, the second in Edith’s Lauren Rousseau mystery series (written as Tace Baker), features a Quaker linguistics professor. Edith holds a PhD in linguistics.

Her short stories have appeared in more than a dozen juried anthologies and magazines. She is active in Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime and is the Vice President of SINC New England.

Edith, a fourth-generation Californian, has two grown sons and lives in an antique house north of Boston with her beau, their three cats, a small organic garden, and some impressive garden statuary. She worked as a software technical writer for almost two decades but now writes fiction full time.