In August of 1844, a man named Leonard Reed takes violently ill at his home near Heathsville, Illinois, and four days later he is dead. The cause? Arsenic poisoning.
The suspect? His wife, Betsey.
The chief witnesses against her? A hired girl, Eveline Deal, and the local apothecary, James Logan. The evidence? Eveline claims she saw Betsey put a pinch of white powder in Leonard’s coffee.
Betsey Reed, a woman who dabbles in herbal healing, is known about town as a witch. As the gossip and the circumstantial evidence mount, Betsey finds herself under the shadow of a trial—and a noose.
A historical crime inspired by the true story of Betsey Reed, for fans of The Trial of Lizzie Borden and The Good Sister, Lee Martin’s latest weaves a tale of a pinch of white powder, a scorched paper, a community hungry for a villain, and a young girl’s first taste of revenge—but above all, of the contradictions and imperfections of the human heart.
عن المؤلف
Lee Martin is the author of the novels, The
Bright Forever, a finalist for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction; River
of Heaven; Quakertown; Break
the Skin; Late One Night, and Yours, Jean. A new memoir, Gone
the Hard Road, came out in
2021. His other memoirs are From Our House, Turning Bones, and Such a Life. He is also the author of two short story
collections, The Least You Need to Know, and The Mutual UFO Network. He is the co-editor of Passing the Word: Writers on Their Mentors
and the author of a craft book. Telling
Stories: The Craft of Narrative and the Writing Life. His fiction and
nonfiction have appeared in such places as Harper’s, Ms., Creative
Nonfiction, The Georgia Review, The Kenyon Review, Fourth Genre, River Teeth, The
Southern Review, Prairie Schooner,
Glimmer Train, The Best
American Essays, and The Best
American Mystery Stories. He is the winner of the Mary Mc Carthy Prize in
Short Fiction and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the
Ohio Arts Council. He teaches in the MFA Program at The Ohio State University,
where he is a College of Arts & Sciences Distinguished Professor, and where
he was also the winner of the 2006 Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching.