The Devil’s Cold Dish

Set in the summer of 1796, Kuhns’s uneven fifth mystery (after 2015’s Death in Salem) finds weaver Will Rees and his pregnant wife, Lydia, back at their farm in rural Dugard, Maine. Shortly after Will and fellow Dugard resident Zadoc Ward come to blows over political differences, Zadoc is found shot to death. As a suspect, Will is not permitted to help Dugard’s constable investigate, but he has plenty to do. The townspeople are inflamed by rumors that Lydia, raised in the little-understood Shaker sect, is a witch, and some attack her at the local market and sabotage the couple’s livestock. When a second murder with ritual elements seems to implicate her, they clamor for her arrest. Will ends up fleeing the farm after first sending Lydia and their younger children away to safety. Though overcomplicated backstory and plotting sometimes blunt the story’s drama, Kuhns gives it timely resonance with a thoughtful exploration of the way fears around religious difference can trigger suspicion, hatred, and even violence. Agent: Mitchell S. Waters, Curtis Brown. (June)