By
Margaret S. Hamilton
Amanda Flower’s historical mystery featuring the poet Emily
Dickinson is the first in a proposed series. The book takes place in winter and
spring, 1855, and is set in two locations, the Dickinson family home in
Amherst, Massachusetts, and at a hotel in Washington, D.C., when Emily, her
mother, and sister Lavinia visit Emily’s congressman father while Congress is
in session.
The book is narrated by the household second maid, Willa
Noble, an intelligent, diligent, and educated older teen, who is the guardian
of her younger brother, Henry. Emily is twenty-four, an avid gardener and
poetry writer, usually accompanied by her Newfoundland dog, Carlo. Emily
selects Willa as the new family maid. Willa soon becomes Emily’s companion, and
while solving the death of Henry, her confidant.
Willa’s narrative tone is perfect, walking a narrow line
between mid-nineteenth century colloquial speech and modern English. Flower
distills a veritable mountain of research into the sensory details of Amherst
in the middle of winter, and then the hustle-bustle of Washington, D.C., as
spring emerges.
Emily is not yet a recluse. In the book, Flower lays the
fictional groundwork for her later poems. Emily is bright, well-educated,
enjoys a correspondence with friends and relatives, and is an advocate for
justice. When Willa is devastated by the death of her younger brother, Emily
pounces on the uncertainty surrounding the events of Henry’s death. With Willa
and Carlo at her side, Emily launches an investigation which leads to
identifying the true culprit.
Flower focuses on three elements of Amherst society: class,
status, and politics. Emily has enjoyed the best education offered to young
women in the mid-nineteenth century, including attending what would become
Mount Holyoke College. Mr. Dickinson is a prosperous lawyer in Amherst and a
Whig representative in Congress. Emily’s brother, Austin, is a Harvard-trained
lawyer, engaged to Emily’s best friend, Susan Gilbert.
In 1855, the Whig party is neither pro-slavery nor
anti-slavery. Henry’s death is connected to the actions of local citizens
assisting slaves fleeing north on the Underground Railroad. Complicating
matters are the bounty hunters who routinely grab both escaping slaves and free
Black citizens and sell them. Combined with the chaos of local residents
thwarting the actions of the bounty hunters, the coverup of Henry’s death blows
up.
I enjoyed Amanda Flower’s historic cozy and anticipate
Emily’s next case in the Emily Dickinson Mystery series.
Readers, do you enjoy historical fiction, particularly
fiction that focuses on real characters?
Writers, do you write historical fiction, and if so, do you
include real characters?
Margaret S. Hamilton is the author of forty short stories,
the first two books in the Jericho Mystery series, and a novella, Erased,
set in 1972.
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