"Maybe she challenged his preconception of Quakers. She smiled. If so, she was hardly a viable example to represent the Society of Friends."
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Friend At Court by Brenda Dow
Trafford Publishing
book review by Donna Smith
Ruth Bowen is a contemporary woman living in 1817. She lives her life as a Quaker, widow, and mother. She travels to Norwich from London to repair her relationship with her estranged parents. While visiting her family, Ruth makes a detour to check up on a deaf girl, Alice Scorby, who is a servant at a nearby country manor house. Her father Mr. Scorby, an employee of Ruth's, hasn't heard from Alice in many months and he's worried about her safety. Ruth promises Scorby she'll find Alice. When Ruth arrives at the mansion, she's denied a visit with Mrs. Varley. This arouses Ruth's suspicion that something is not right, especially when Gilly the manservant tells her Alice was let go because she stole a necklace from Mrs. Varley. Thus, begins Ruth's quest to find Alice and help extract her from the precarious situation she's entangled in. Ruth embarks on a mission that brings her into contact with a "Quaker hater" Judge, Samson Garrett, and other men of dubious reputations. Mysteries unfold amidst, poisonings, attempted murder, abduction, and actual murder.
Throughout the novel, Ruth pursues her quest for justice in unconventional ways for a Quaker woman to behave in the nineteenth century. She is a determined woman who will forgo proper etiquette and comfort to save someone she believes is wrongly accused. Dow constructs a story stitched together with intrigue and hemmed with a little romance. She aptly conveys the time period and the social morals of the era that Ruth constantly challenges. Ruth is a grown-up Nancy Drew although her mystery has violence. In her novel, Dow shows readers the past when crime was determined without forensics and technology. Instead, Ruth must prove Alice's innocence using deduction and common sense along with factual testimony.
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