When two women die

In 1690, a mysterious Englishwoman was killed in the colonial fishing village of Marblehead, Massachusetts by pirates who came ashore one night and committed a brutal murder while a peaceful town slept. The woman's cries could be heard all over town as she begged for her life. All the able bodied men in Marblehead were over 500 miles away fishing at the Grand Banks in Newfoundland. The only townspeople left, women, children and old men, shivered in their beds as the woman pleaded for mercy from violent men. 301 years later, not far from the first, another murder was committed in Marblehead, a place nearly unchanged by time. In modern day, in a place so beautiful, no one can imagine anything bad happening. A woman went sailing with her neighbor. He killed her. Patricia Goodwin has written a fictional thriller linking two murders, and two women, who died and became legends in a beautiful seacoast town layered with historic mystery: in 1690, a simple town of fishermen, pirates, and a few officials; in 1991, a sophisticated town full of wealthy professionals and their families; old, stalwart Yankees; and a few men who still make their living by the sea.