Dangerous Women

December 14, 2020
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.

January 1, 2021
Alas for the hopes of an ardent young reformer aboard a shipful of women convicts when one of them is attacked. In April 1841, the Rajah leaves London for Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania). Onboard are nearly 200 women convicted of petty crimes and sentenced to transportation to the other side of the world. With them are Capt. Charles Ferguson, master of the Rajah; a pious but stern clergyman; the jovial ship's doctor; and the 23-year-old matron of the prisoners, idealistic Kezia Hayter. She hopes to build a community among the women by choosing 18 of them to assemble a quilt to present to their new home's governor when they arrive. In a series of temporal jumps to and from the past, the near past, and the present of 1841, Kezia's life and the lives of the convicts--some of whom have known nothing but poverty and degradation, some grieving for the families they had to leave behind, a few who were allowed to bring their children with them--are stitched together. When Hattie Matthews is stabbed, Kezia helps the captain, the parson, and the doctor interview the seven witnesses to the event. Some of them recall Hattie's fear that she was being watched, others the swatch of fabric in which was embroidered a warning for Hattie to keep silent. What none of the investigators know is that one of the convicts is an imposter who stole the identity of another prisoner in a desperate attempt to escape the gallows. Her fear that someone onboard may recognize her makes her the obvious suspect in what might well yet be a murder--and forces her to turn to the one person who could be her undoing. A historical episode artfully adapted in a bleak tale that offers glimmers of hope for women discarded by society.

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February 12, 2021
In 1841, the Rajah sets sail from London bound for Van Dieman's Land (present-day Tasmania), carrying a group of female convicts. Kezia Hayter, a young woman related to the court painters John, George, and Charles Hayter, is on board as the matron. Hoping to give the women a chance at new lives in Australia by teaching them a marketable skill, she leads them in making a patchwork quilt, giving them an opportunity to create something beautiful while learning to sew and work together. All goes smoothly until one of the women, Hattie, is killed, leaving her young son, Bertie, scared and alone. The ship's captain, Charles Ferguson, along with Kezia, holds hearings to find the killer. As the inquiries proceed, relationships among the women emerge as a key to motive. Basing her novel on fact, Adams draws from the actual ship's logs to create an intriguing story. (The quilt is in the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra.) This variant of the locked-room murder will appeal to readers who enjoy historical fiction centered on women's lives.

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