The Glassmaker’s Wife

Martin (Yours, Jean) draws on a sensationalized 1844 murder trial for this clever yarn. Leonard Reed, the glassmaker of Heathsville, Ill., dies suddenly after a brief illness. Later, Eveline Deal, the Reeds’ hired girl, claims she’d seen Leonard’s wife, Betsy, pour white powder into Leonard’s coffee before he fell ill. Betsy claims the powder was just the salt that Leonard liked, but the resulting symptoms, coupled with a statement from the apothecary, James Logan, that the paper Eveline witnessed in Betsy’s possession matched the kind he wrapped arsenic in, lead the coroner to rule that Leonard was murdered. Logan adds that he believes he may have sold the poison to Betsy while she was in disguise. Once a test confirms the presence of arsenic in Leonard’s stomach, his widow, who some locals already believe is a witch, is charged with murder, leading to a dramatic trial in which she’s defended by the governor-elect and the former attorney general. As Martin shifts between Eveline’s and to Betsy’s perspectives, a fuller sense of the truth emerges, and he captures the closed-mindedness of a small community willing to believe the worst of one of its own. Historical fiction fans will have a ball. (Dec.)