The Burying Ground Thaddeus Lewis Mysteries Book 4 by Janet Kellough

289 Pages
Publisher: Dundurn, Dundurn Press
Release Date: July 11, 2015

Fiction, Historical Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Canada, Toronto, 1850s, Grave Robbing, Blackmail

In 1851, someone is digging up graves at the Stranger’s Burying Ground in Toronto. Morgan Spicer, a sexton, is concerned. He asks his friend Thaddeus Lewis, a saddlebag preacher, for assistance. Thaddeus’ son, Luke Lewis, recently finished medical school and took a position with Dr. Christie in a rural area outside of Toronto.

Luke is invited to a party after rescuing a young Black woman named Cherub. Lavinia, the hostess, likes to hold power over other people. Since she knows Luke is questioning his sexuality, she threatens him. She wants him to find her husband’s money so she and Cherub can leave the city and start over.

The story has a steady pace, the characters are developed, and it is written in the third person point of view. Although this book is the fourth book in the series, it is more about Luke than Thaddeus. I did not read the previous books in the series but that did not affect my reading experience. If you like historical fiction with a mysterious twist, you may enjoy reading this book.

Thaddeus Lewis is a Methodist pastor with a passion for solving crimes, and this is not the first novel in the series dedicated to him, set in Toronto in the mid-1800s. In this case, however, the main character is Thaddeus' son Luke, a doctor, who struggles with a rather complicated personal problem at the time: his own homosexuality. All against the backdrop of the historical and fictional events that involved one of the first non-denominational cemeteries in history, the Strangers' Burying Ground. A truly enjoyable book, well-written, with well-delineated characters (above all, young Lewis's elderly colleague, who page after page wins the reader's affection), based on not inconsiderable historical research.