Dangerous Women

Adams’s debut transforms an actual 19th-century sea voyage into a striking personal drama. In April 1841, a transport ship sets sail from London with 180 women convicted of minor crimes aboard. During the three-month voyage to the penal colony in Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania), the ship’s matron, Kezia Hayter, chooses a group of convicts to sew a presentation quilt. Near their destination, someone stabs one of the quilters, Hattie Matthews, and it becomes clear that another member of the group has secretly stolen the place of another woman on the ship in order to flee from justice for a much more serious crime. Evocative sketches of those on board reveal the realities of poor women’s lives with a gently feminist, but still comfortably period, aesthetic, as do the difficulties that Kezia has in having her insights respected by the men investigating Hattie’s stabbing. The romance that develops between Kezia and the ship’s captain comes off as blandly inevitable, but the undercurrent of gossip around the relationships the other women pursue is much juicier. Readers who like their historical mysteries well-grounded in real history will be rewarded. Agent: Nelle Andrew, Rachel Mills Literary. (Feb.)