John is startled to hear Sam say Henry has been arrested for the murder of Jonathan Cottrell, King George's attache in the colonies, who was thought to be the fiance of a young woman, Lucy Fluckner. In an odd coincidence, or so Abigail thinks, one of Lucy's family's serving women has just disappeared. Lucy insists that her association with Jonathan is one of her father's imagination. Abigail quickly realizes that the true object of Lucy's affection is Henry Knox, giving Henry a motive to murder Jonathan beyond their political differences.

John, of course, believes completely in Henry's innocence, as does Abigail, in spite of the preponderance of evidence against him. During their courtship, John's pet name for Abigail was Portia, after Shakespeare's woman lawyer, owing to Abigail's keen mind and aptitude for logical thinking.;It is these traits, coupled with her role as a woman in pre-Revolutionary War Boston, that allows Abigail to learn things that her husband might not uncover or notice. Soon she realizes that there was much about Jonathan Cottrell not to care for, offering many more motives for murder and opening up the field of suspects.

Barbara Hamilton, who has written several historical mysteries under another name, has faithfully recreated eighteenth-century Boston and its now famous residents. She has taken a familiar time period and easily brought to life the historical figures who were key in the Revolution and in creating a new nation. Abigail Adams, recognized by her own husband as a very fine mind, remains mindful of her social position as a wife and mother, but has a strong sense of duty as well as right and wrong that propels her to seek the truth.

This time period in American history, especially in the Boston area, is rife with secrecy and suspicion of others, making it a perfect setting for a complexly plotted mystery with many suspects and motives.

--Jennifer Monahan Winberry