Search - Too Soon for Flowers

#2 in the Bracebridge historical mystery series set in 1760's Massachusetts. Smallpox is once again on the rampage and young widow Charlotte Willette's neighbor, Richard Longfellow, has brought a physician to Bracebridge to do inoculations which are still new and controversial medical treatments at that time. Three people, including Longfellow's own sister Diana, are quarantined in Charlotte's home and when one of them dies, a fanatical religious group who sees getting smallpox as God's will and punishment, blames the inoculation. But was Phoebe killed by the dreaded germ, or by more mundane means--and if so, why? Enjoyable read; I figured out parts of the mystery ahead of time but not all of it. I always get a bit of a "Sleepy Hollow" sense when reading this series.

Spring 1764. Smallpox talks colonial Boston. Country town Bracebridge receives people fleeing this deadly disease. The young widow Charlotte Willett and scientist/farmer Richard Longfellow help with quarantine, innoculation and death by murder. Now the townsfolk see the hand of the Devil in all this and Charlotte and Richard must bring logic and reason to the problem to save the ones the townsfolk would blame.