Framing the Dialogue

The latest novel in Susan Wittig Albert’s China Bayles mystery novel leaves behind her usual cast when China travels to Kentucky to visit a Shaker Village.  In Wormwood, Albert alternates between two stories, both involving intrigue, love, theft, and murder.  In the main story, China Bayles travels with a friend to investigate shady dealings at a historic Shaker Village. 

It isn’t too long before China finds a body.  This is a good, light mystery as you would expect from an Albert book.  What I thought was a nice component of the novel was the parallel story that takes place in the same Shaker Village, but a hundred years earlier.  I had heard of Shaker furniture, but did not know anything about the people.  A deeply religious and chaste people, their story also involved intrigue, love, theft and murder.