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Killingly

Audiobook
2 of 2 copies available
2 of 2 copies available
Massachusetts, 1897: Bertha Mellish, "the most peculiar, quiet, reserved girl" at Mount Holyoke College, is missing.
As a search team dredges the pond where Bertha might have drowned, her panicked father and sister arrive desperate to find some clue to her fate or state of mind. Bertha's best friend, Agnes, a scholarly loner studying medicine, might know the truth, but she is being unhelpfully
tightlipped, inciting the suspicions of Bertha's family, her classmates, and the private investigator hired by the Mellish family doctor. As secrets from Agnes's and Bertha's lives come to light, so do the competing agendas driving each person who is searching for Bertha.
Where did Bertha go? Who would want to hurt her? And could she still be alive?
Edmund White Award–winning author Katharine Beutner takes a real-life unsolved mystery and crafts it into an unforgettable historical portrait of academia, family trauma, and the risks faced by women who dared to pursue unconventional paths at the end of the 19th century.
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    • AudioFile Magazine
      Rachel Botchan impressively conveys this disturbing story based on an actual unsolved murder in 1800s Killingly, Connecticut, and Boston. When Mount Holyoke student Bertha Mellish disappears, listeners meet her family and other students from the college, including her best friend, Agnes. Botchan deftly re-creates the period diction, snobbish members of the upper class, domineering teachers, and people who are prejudiced against female scholars, queerness, and the poor. Botchan's most compelling and dramatically rendered portrayal is that of sinister Agnes, who enjoys working with animal carcasses and is determined to keep Bertha's secrets. Botchan also delivers letters and historical documents well. Happily, the story's one-dimensional characters and glacial pace are somewhat mitigated by audio. It's a relief when the authorities finally arrive at the shocking conclusion. S.G.B. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine

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