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Reviewed by Grant Leishman for Readers' Favorite
A Necessary Death by Terri Karsten takes readers on a journey back to post-revolutionary America as the new country was beginning to discover its identity. Penelope Corbitt and her two children are traveling from Philadelphia to Boston with her brother-in-law, where they will all enter into some form of service. With Penelope’s husband seemingly long gone and Penelope required to pay off his gambling debts, she has little choice but to accept her curmudgeonly brother-in-law’s offer of assistance. An accident leaves the carriage with a broken axle and an unexpected delay at a small, run-down tavern whilst the carriage is being repaired. The surprise discovery of a dead body in the tavern’s outhouse leads Penelope and the local constable, also the tavern owner, on a search for just who might have killed the town’s parson.
A Necessary Death is a well-written and carefully plotted historical “whodunit” that will appeal to lovers of mysteries, historical fiction, and crime novels. Author Terri Karsten has created a delightful character in Penelope Corbitt, a woman who has faced her fair share of troubles from her wastrel husband, yet remains determined to create a better life for her children. Not only was she prepared to stand up to the men around her, an uncommon trait for women of her time, but she also had a high degree of intelligence and common sense. The treatment of and attitudes of the European settlers toward their Native American compatriots, as well as their black slaves, were fascinating. Although the story is set in the North, where attitudes toward slavery were less harsh than in the turbulent South, it was still clear that for many inhabitants, the Native Americans and blacks were considered to be a lower class of humanity. I was surprised to discover that the common name for an outhouse in the 1760s was, in fact, a 'necessary,' which gives new meaning to the title. This is a short, fun, cleverly constructed read that I thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend.
