Review: "The Witch Hunter's Tale," Sam Thomas

By Paul Carrier

It may not be a true den of iniquity. But York, England, has its share of vice — real and imagined — in historian Sam Thomas’ mysteries, which are set in that city in the 1640s.

Puritan reformers were obsessed with ridding the city of prostitutes In The Harlot’s Tale, the second entry in this series. In The Witch Hunter's Tale, a riveting follow-up that takes place a short time later, they turn their attention to fighting witchcraft.

Superstition remains a powerful force in England during the Civil War. Even the few voices of moderation and sensibility, led by wealthy midwife Bridget Hodgson, believe in witches. Bridget (a character inspired by a real 17th-century York midwife by the same name)  simply hopes to assure that innocent people are not unfairly targeted in a megalomaniac’s misguided search for Satan’s minions.

“It was not that I, or any of us for that matter, objected to the hanging of a witch,” Bridget tells readers after she witnesses the execution of Hester Jackson, an elderly woman whose curse is blamed for the death of a mother and her child. “It is one thing to believe in the reality of witchcraft. It is another to see a neighbor hanged for the crime.”

From Bridget’s perspective, things are not going at all well in York, where the armies of Parliament have wrested control from royalists loyal to King Charles I. The Parliamentarians, fueled by political ambition and Puritan fanaticism, are rounding up accused witches by the dozen. The mania spreads to the countryside, and in no time the city’s jails overflow with despised and vulnerable women.

Even some people who fear witches can see that things are moving too far too fast. Bridget and her deputy, Martha Hawkins, hope to rein in the madness, but the odds are not in their favor.

George Breary, their ally on the City Council, is killed in a dark alley, and Bridget’s innocent nephew Will Hodgson is charged with the murder. The councilman who is leading the charge against suspected witches, Bridget’s power-mad nephew Joseph Hodgson, allies himself with disgraced midwife Rebecca Hooke, Bridget’s nemesis. Even as Bridget and Martha search for Breary’s killer, Bridget has good reason to fear that the hysteria sweeping through York may ensnare her and her loved ones.

Americans associate witchcraft with the Salem trials of the late 17th century, but witch hunts had a dark history in Europe before they reached our shores. Thomas explains in an author's note that he modeled the novel’s frenzy on the fact that some 300 witches were executed in England between 1644 and 1646.

In The Witch Hunter’s Tale, virtually anyone can accuse anyone else of practicing witchcraft, with potentially deadly results. When Lucy Pierce, a pregnant woman under Bridget’s care, gives birth to a stillborn child, her "gossips" (friends) insist that Mother Lee, a malevolent neighborhood woman, bewitched the baby. Once she’s under arrest, Mother Lee doesn’t help her cause. In fact, she seals her fate by proclaiming that she cast a spell on Lucy. In a world where the absurd is credible, some accused witches actually believe in their own guilt.

Rebecca has won the all-powerful job of searching each accused woman for a “witch’s teat,” from which her “imp” would suck. Such fanciful notions are laughable to us, but in The Witch Hunter’s Tale, they can mean the difference between life and death. Bridget believes Rebecca is claiming to find the “devil’s mark” on innocent women, out of vengeance against her foes or to help Joseph solidify his hold on power by promoting himself as the city’s savior. When Rebecca makes a veiled threat to charge Bridget’s young, adopted daughter with witchcraft, tragedy may be only a knock away from Bridget’s door. 

So Bridget’s tasks mount from one day to the next, until they seem insurmountable. She is determined to find Breary’s killer, free Will before he can be tried and hanged by a kangaroo court, prevent the witch hunt from spiraling completely out of control, and protect her own family from ruthless zealots who would stop at nothing to eliminate their enemies.

Just as Bridget’s and Martha’s prospects seem hopeless and everything they hold dear is on the verge of slipping away, this fast-paced, satisfying mystery takes a dramatic turn. I found myself racing through the final chapters to learn how Bridget would handle a painful moral dilemma that would shape the city's future, and her own. It would be gratifying to learn that Thomas plans to have these two resourceful sleuths continue their adventures in a fourth Midwife Mystery. A reader can only hope so.

Review: "The Harlot's Tale," Sam Thomas

By Paul Carrier

Half the fun of reading a good whodunit is knowing that an engaging detective is at the helm, and Bridget Hodgson fits that bill nicely in The Harlot’s Tale, Sam Thomas’ sequel to The Midwife’s Tale.

Like its predecessor, The Harlot’s Tale is set in 17th-century York, England, during the Civil War that pitted royalists who supported King Charles I against parliamentarians. The novel opens one year after the rebel armies of Parliament captured York in 1644, introducing a puritanical regime that cracked down on prostitution and imposed draconian religious reforms.

Working with her wealthy but sometimes dissolute nephew Will Hodgson and her feisty, streetwise servant Martha Hawkins, Bridget finds herself investigating the brutal murders of a prostitute and her client by a fanatical killer who left biblical citations at the crime scene to show that the victims were slaughtered because of their sinful ways.

When two adulterers are later strangled even before the first two murders have been solved, it looks like overzealous supporters of the new regime are determined to impose religious extremism on York by instilling fear in its residents. With news of a fifth murder, the race is on to solve the crimes before more people fall victim to the rampage.

A number of possible suspects emerge as readers race through the pages of The Harlot’s Tale, but the climax provides several surprising twists, some tragic, others heartwarming. No one likes spoilers; suffice it to say that, when all is said and done, the body count has spiked, there’s plenty of blame to go around, and justice is served, albeit in an unorthodox fashion.

Thomas’ fast-moving tale features detectives who are strong and tenacious women. Bridget is a well-to-do “gentlewoman,” so she is a person of high standing in York. But she’s also a midwife, perhaps the best in the city, which brings her into contact with girls and women from all classes, including prostitutes, during the “travails” of their labor and delivery.

The glimpses of 17th-century midwifery, as Bridget makes her rounds and trains Martha as her apprentice, provide a remarkable perspective, while reinforcing the fact that we are dealing with no ordinary sleuths. In the midst of the crime wave, midwives talk about using goose grease to help a “constricted” woman deliver, and readers learn about the gruesome business of extracting a lifeless fetus to save the mother’s life.

The kind-hearted Bridget is independent and shrewd, but she definitely is a product of her time and place, not some 21st-century version of a 17th-century woman. She is devout (in her own way) and proper, a proud member of the upper crust who expects people to defer to her because of her rank. As York suffers under its new rulers and at least one killer runs loose in the city during a relentless heat wave, Bridget, who is twice widowed and has lost two children to disease, comes to question the value of prayer. Yet she continues to seek divine guidance.

Moderate and thoughtful, Bridget is of two minds regarding the rebels’ determination to rid York of its supposedly evil ways. “I could not deny that a magistrate who suppressed vice did God’s work,” Bridget muses, but “some among the godly” took their reforms beyond what was prudent, by banning “harmless pastimes such as playing at bowls, which I quite enjoyed . . . .” Bridget opposes prostitution as much as the “hot gospellers” do, yet she does not share their hatred of both sin and sinner. She believes “the poverty in which the city’s whores lived and the humiliations they endured were punishment enough for their transgressions.”

Thomas provides a convincing look at what life must have been like in a conflicted English city while the nation was in the throes of civil war.

The Parliamentarians and their fanatical religious allies have “replaced the King’s priests with ministers who loved the sermon above all else and disdained the beauty of holiness,” Bridget tells us. The Puritans “stripped the cathedral of its silver candlesticks and destroyed the memorial to Thomas à Becket,” while also removing stained glass windows from another church in the city. A popular but half-mad zealot preaches fire and brimstone on street corners and forges alliances with the city's leaders.

The third book in this series, The Witch Hunter’s Tale, was published in January of this year. Set in York during the same time period, it opens in suitably dramatic fashion: “The crowd cried out for the witch’s blood, and the hangman obliged.” If it meets the high standards set by the first two entries, it promises to be another great read.

Review: "The Midwife's Tale: A Mystery," Sam Thomas

By Paul Carrier

Britain's rich history is fertile ground for writers of historical fiction. More often than not, such novels are set during the 1500s (think Henry VIII and Elizabeth I) or, much later, during the Napoleonic Wars of the early 1800s. The 17th century rarely makes the cut.

There are exceptions, thanks to authors such as Rose Tremain. Still, C. J. Sansom, S. J. Parris, Hilary Mantel, Patrick O'Brian and C. S. Forester are among the many writers whose historical novels focus on periods of English history that either preceded or followed the Civil War (1642-1651).

Not so Sam Thomas, whose mystery The Midwife's Tale takes place in 1644, as King Charles I and Parliament battle for control of the realm. Royalists loyal to the king command the garrison in York, but local leaders there have divided loyalties, with some of them supporting the rebel armies of Parliament that have laid siege to the city.

It is against that backdrop that Bridget Hodgson, a wealthy widow and midwife, finds herself investigating the murder of Stephen Cooper, a local merchant who was poisoned in his home. Bridget is a friend of Esther Cooper, the victim's widow, who is charged with murdering her husband. Esther is quickly convicted and sentenced to burn at the stake.

Bridget is convinced of Esther's innocence, and she is appalled by the hasty, irregular nature of the trial, during which Esther was not even allowed to testify in her own defense. Stephen Cooper was in league with the rebels, which may explain why the mayor of York, a ruthless royalist, set the wheels in motion to obtain a speedy conviction.

Esther gets a temporary stay when Bridget examines her in prison and notifies the mayor that she is pregnant. But Bridget's finding takes on added significance when the mayor threatens to ruin her and her prominent brother-in-law Edward unless she reverses herself.

As she searches for the killer, Bridget gets help from her new servant, Martha Hawkins, who turns out to be remarkably tough, sassy and street smart. Over time, Bridget comes to question whether Martha is something other than what she seems. The answer comes soon enough, and it quickly becomes clear that the mayor is not the only person in York who may be out to get Bridget. Two more murders follow, including that of a newborn child. Are they all linked?

Bridget's sleuthing reveals that Stephen Cooper had plenty of enemies. The city's royalists saw his allegiance to the rebels as treasonous. Moreover, Cooper had filed a lawsuit against a powerful local family, and he may have been on the verge of winning it. Finally, someone wrote to Cooper before his death threatening to expose his supposed misdeeds unless Cooper bought the extortionist's silence.

In addition to weaving a compelling tale that initially leaves readers guessing because there are several possible murder suspects, Thomas brings 16th century York to life, especially from the perspective of women in general and midwives in particular. In many ways, it is a world unlike our own.

The reader learns that "gossips" (friends) always attend to a pregnant woman during her "travail" (childbirth). We discover how hard life is for an unmarried servant who gives birth in that time and place, because her employer probably will fire her to avoid harboring a "wanton woman." A "bastard-bearing" mother faces an even worse fate if someone murders her child; she will be presumed guilty until proven innocent.

Bridget plays a fascinating role in the life of the city, both because she is a well-to-do "gentlewoman" and because, as a midwife, she has multiple, well-defined civic duties. They include investigating infanticide and getting her clients to identify the fathers of children born out of wedlock, to assure that they provide the 17th-century equivalent of child support.

"I ensured that men who fathered bastards had to pay for their children and that the women who bore them would be whipped," says Bridget, who is a woman both of her time and ahead of it. "If a maiden was raped, who but a midwife would stand with her against her assailant? Who better than a midwife could recognize the signs of bewitchment and the witch's mark? Without midwives, lust would reign, and order would turn to chaos."

Loosely modeled after an actual 17th-century York midwife, the fictional Bridget is a proper, God-fearing woman -- to a point. She also is tough-minded, tenacious and, when the situation warrants, caustic, at least in her capacity as the novel's narrator. When she introduces the reader to a malevolent woman, for example, Bridget muses: "If the devil ever chose to take human form, he would do well to study Rebecca Hooke beforehand."