Touring Rose Carroll's Haunts, a Guest Post by Edith Maxwell

 RHYS BOWEN: Today we have a visit from a writer who needs no introduction at Jungle Reds. Edith Maxwell is one of our most loyal contributors and commenters and we all celebrate every time she has a new book out.  This one is different from her series. It's a collection of short stories featuring her Quaker midwife. So tell us about them, Edith.

EDITH MAXWELL:  Thank you for hosting me today, Rhys, to celebrate the recent release of my collection of midwife Rose Carroll short stories. Almost all the short tales in A Questionable Death and Other Historical Quaker Midwife Mysteries take place in Amesbury in northeastern Massachusetts where I live. All the Quaker Midwife Mystery novels except one are set in Amesbury, too.

 

I'm excited about the publication of this collection and delighted to keep Rose in front of readers' eyes. I’ll give away a copy of the book to a commenter (paper to US residents or ebook to others).

 

I’ve loved being able to walk around town and research the setting for the books and the stories. I thought I’d give the wonderful Reds community a photographic tour of some of the places in the stories that comprise the collection.

 

The first story in the book, “In Pursuit of Justice,” is new for this collection. It begins with apprentice-midwife Rose in 1886 reading a note from John Greenleaf Whittier asking for her help with a matter involving the previous day’s violent death of a fellow Quaker, the father of a baby Rose recently helped deliver. Rose meets in John’s parlor with him and police detective Kevin Donovan, and soon enough she finds herself in her first sleuthing adventure. The Whittier Home Museum is a short walk from my (which is also Rose’s) house and from the Friends Meetinghouse.

 

 Whittier, the rock-star-level Quaker poet, had a custom-made writing chair in his parlor that traveled with him wherever he went.]

 

In “An Ominous Silence,” Rose and her apprentice Annie Beaumont are on a winter train to Montreal. After it becomes mired in deep snow, a woman goes into labor and a man is found murdered.

 

Rose and Annie would have embarked from the train depot, which now houses Crave Bistro, a popular restaurant.]

“The Unfortunate Death of Mrs. Edna Fogg” takes place during the 1888 Presidential election. Voting took place at the new town Armory, now Amesbury City Hall, and the Amesbury Women Suffrage Association demonstrated across the street demanding the right to vote. This story sparked Called to Justice, the third novel in the series.

 

I wrote “Murder in the Summer Kitchen” for an anthology called Murder Among Friends, to benefit the Whittier Birthplace in nearby Haverhill. Like many 19th century homes, the Whittier home featured a kitchen removed from the main abode that was used in the summer to keep fire and heat separate from the living quarters.

“The Mayor and the Midwife” features several characters originally from New Orleans, as well as the pleasure steamboats that plied the wide Merrimack River that runs through Amesbury. The steamboats are no longer, but the river, still partly tidal, runs fast and true. This story was nominated for an Agatha Award for Best Short Story, thanks in part to dialect help from the late (and dear, and great) Ramona DeFelice Long.

 

 

Rose’s good friend Postmistress Bertie Winslow narrates “Adam and Eva.” I wish I could show you a picture of the 1888 post office, but it burned down in the Great Fire. This historic post office downtown wasn’t built until 1905 and is now an office building, but it still uses the same old boxes Bertie’s PO would have had.

 

“A Fire in Carriagetown” was what kicked off the whole series of novels. I hadn’t even invented Rose yet, so her mill worker niece Faith Baily tells the story of the Great Fire of 1888 and a misguided person who also tries to burn down the Friends Meetinghouse while Quakers are inside in silent worship.

 

 Amesbury Friends Meetinghouse, built 1855, is to this day essentially the same inside and out, and is where I sit in silent expectant waiting on Sunday mornings.]

 

In “The Case of the Missing Bicycle, we see Bertie’s back garden and the home of an impoverished family Rose is assisting. The family lives in a small, run-down house like this one.

 

The collection’s title story, “A Questionable Death,” was also nominated for an Agatha Award for Best Short Story. Lake Gardner, which was formed by the town damming the rushing Powow River in the eighteen-sixties, is featured several times in this story. I’m so lucky the lake and its swimming beach is only a ten-minute walk from my home.

 

 I took this picture on a blustery day at the end of March. It’s much prettier in the summer when the story takes place!]

 

“The Management of Secrets” takes place ten years later, in January of 1900. Rose still works as a midwife but had retired from sleuthing until police chief Kevin begs her to help with another case involving Quakers. Rose, her husband David Dodge, and their four children live in the home David had built for them the year they married. Rose and her eldest daughter attend Quaker worship on a snowy day.

 

 The house a mile from my house that I chose to be Rose and David’s home]

 

The limited release, signed and numbered hardcover edition includes a chapbook with yet another new story, “Labor’s Peril.” Narrated by both Rose and Faith, it tells parallel stories of labor. One kind of labor ended in childbirth. The other ended in a strike by the Hamilton Mill workers, with an assist by George Edwin McNeill, an Amesbury native called the “Father of the Eight-Hour Work Day.” Both Faith and Rose become involved in solving a murder on the rushing waters of the Powow River falls.

 

This Hamilton Mills building (one of nine) is now home to the Industrial History Center, our wonderful historical museum.]

 

Can you see why I love living in the middle of all this history? As I wander through Amesbury on my walking errands and plotting strolls, these extant buildings and centuries-old natural features spark my imagination and keeps me connected to the past.

 

You are all warmly welcome to join me at the Industrial History Center on May 6 at 5 pm as I launch A Questionable Death at in-person party. I hope to see you there!

Readers: What’s your favorite historical building or landmark? What old haunts do you like to tour?

 

A Questionable Death and Other Historical Quaker Midwife Mysteries is a collection of Edith Maxwell’s previously published short stories featuring nineteenth-century midwife Rose Carroll. Since 2013, they've been published in juried anthologies and magazines, and only the most dedicated of fans would have sought them all out. In this collection, reader can find them all in one place. “Apprentice to Murder,” a new story, serves as a prequel to the other books and the stories and opens the collection. The limited edition hardbound version includes a chapbook with another new story, “Labor’s Peril.”

Buy links:

Crippen &Landru

Amazon

B&N

Edith’s local indy (order from Jabberwocky and ask for a signed copy)

 

Agatha Award-winning author Edith Maxwell writes the historical Quaker Midwife Mysteries and Agatha-nominated short crime fiction. As Maddie Day she pens the contemporary Country Store Mysteries, the Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries, and the Cece Barton Mysteries. A long-time member of Amesbury Friends Meeting (Quaker), Maxwell lives in Amesbury where she writes, gardens, cooks, and wastes time on Facebook. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America and a proud lifetime member of Sisters in Crime. Find her at EdithMaxwell.com.