Wormwood by Susan Wittig Albert

book 17 of 29 - Amazon Link to Book

3 star review

Shaker history told through journals, running parallel to a real time story linking murders, scandal, and uncovering both a new crime and an old shaker secret. Family is not always safe.

  3 -stars

Loved the history, struggled with the amount of intervention and boarder line tampering the main character China Bayles does while interferes with the ongoing and newly discovered crimes. Solving the crime herself and handing over the information at the end to law enforcement even going as far as interrogating a suspect herself.

Although her husband is a police officer, China herself is a lawyer and should know better than to mess with official evidence.

I enjoyed the shaker history and stories uncovering its cult like control over members and how many of the members are able to pull the wool over the eyes of many of the leaders. Not only are we given a real time murder and intertwined scandal but also enjoy the old shaker scandal playing out linking both events to one particular family that has been involved with the Shaker Culter in a finical scene for many generations. Wrapping up the family's history and financial intervention for good.

3 stars for a great mystery and lots of cult like history from the shakers, would have loved a more realistic boundary set for the main characters playing detectives.