The Strange Death of Mistress Coffin

by Robert J. Begiebing

The time is the late 1640s, the place, the New England coast. A young woman has been found dead, stripped naked and thrown in a river. Her husband has mysteriously halted his legal proceedings against the most likely suspect, who has disappeared into the wilderness. Based on an actual unsolved murder that took place in colonial New Hampshire, Robert J. Begiebing's THE STRANGE DEATH OF MISTRESS COFFIN is at once a spellbinding mystery and a fascinating evocation of life in early America. "Unusual and mesmerizing. A striking and original work by a gifted writer with an extraordinary feeling for the past."--E. Annie Proulx, The New York Times Book Review; "Begiebing illuminates 'the dark and wonderful intricacy' of the human heart."-- Yankee. A MYSTERY BOOK CLUB MAIN SELECTION and a LITERARY GUILD SELECTION.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Mystery, Novels

248 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

Reviews

[C-shaw · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe 2-1/2 stars. I went from not much liking this book and struggling through it, to being very interested, then back to meh again. Too much 1600-era philosophizing.

[Athena · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the setting of this story and the pace was steady, and although the circumstances were the focal point surrounding Mistress Coffin's death, I felt as though Elizabeth Higgins was the actual mystery, especially with the questions raised by her death.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is set in late 1640s colonial America, where Kathryn Coffin, married to an older man, is violently killed and Richard Browne, newly arrived from England, is asked to find out why the murdered woman’s husband declines to prosecute Jared Higgins, the obvious suspect. Browne finds Higgins has joined a native tribe but keeps that from Elizabeth Higgins, the wife. The story starts out intriguingly, with an excellent feeling for the time and place, but an artificial-sounding journal extract heralds far too much philosophising.

[Marilyn Shea · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a very strange little book. It is the story of the murder of a woman in New England during the 1600s and the circumstances of her death that were not admitted at the time but only revealed many years later. All the way through it, I thought about it when I wasn't reading it, trying to explain it to myself from the incomplete clues. The story was rich in historical detail especially about the beliefs of the people of the time, the pull of religion yielding to the attractions of commerce and creating wealth from the new land. It was fascinating.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know if I have ever read a book from the 1600s that wasn't by Hawthorne, Melville, etc. Begiebing's mystery concerned the main character trying to unravel the truth behind the death of Goody Coffin. It seemed to take Browne a long time to get to the truth, and then he always seemed to doubt if it was really true. I looked up a number of unfamiliar words as I read this book.

[Sasha Sierra · Rating 3 out of 5]

B-. Found this book in a free library. The old English is a little hard to get beyond but the story does get interesting. Enjoyed it for the Sherlock Holmes/period piece aspects of it. Did not enjoy the brutal SA violence and odd choice of when to include time stamps vs not.

[Mary Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hard to tell if there is any fact due to the time period and place. Further research is needed.

[Donna Bryant · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was okay as a mystery. I like historical fiction and in that respect it was a good read.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

An odd book and compelling. Based an a fairly grim unsolved murder in 1648 New Hampshire- the tone, language, characters and resolution hold true to the period. Begiebing is an English and History professor and this is one of three published books that evoke a novel which might have been written in this era. The women characters are rendered both dependent of the men and community- but independent in thinking and remarkably competent- which wouldn't one HAVE to be to survive the rigors of settling in the New World. The speech rhythms and formalities in behavior become dialectic, and the characters have more humanity, humor, warmth and behavioral ticks than the usual stiff, 2-d depiction of Puritan-Colonial predecessors. With historical reference to both Native American and colonization in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut- it is a trifecta win for readers that enjoy history, unsolved crime, and detection. A real slice of gritty but not too gruesome early Americana. A bit wordy at the end- but satisfying resolve to a complex crime in a young nation, with little legal or religious structure to count on , and a fairly young population building community as well as a nation
.

[Claudia Putnam · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book when it first came out; it's survived several moves and bookshelf purges. I don't remember all the details but I remember that it gave me much to think about. I still think about how complicated the relationships between the settlers and the Natives were, and also how diverse the agendas and concerns within the Colonial communities. Peter Ackroyd, in his novel First Light, makes the case that we are really the same as we have ever been, while Hilary Mantel argues the opposite in her historical novels. This book is evidence of both our similarity to our predecessors and our differences with them.

[Jean-Paul Adriaansen · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's a good thing that this book, originally published in 1991, came back on the market. Robert Begiebing, professor of English and historian, succeeded in evoking the spirit of the time when the first pioneers took hold on the Piscataqua region in New Hampshire.
The reciprocity between the settlers and the Native Americans, as well as the constant fear of "savage attacks," the hard labor and the possible fruits thereof, religion and superstition, all those things are never far away while the mystery of Mrs. Coffin's death is slowly being unraveled.

[Linda · Rating 2 out of 5]

The premise of this short novel, a mysterious and brutal death, is intriguing, as is its setting. The writing is intelligent and the main character, Richard Browne, is well explored. His uncertainty and mis-steps are particularly appealing. Most of the detail regarding life in 17th century New England is accurate. Once the plot line is laid out, however, the story never goes anywhere else, sinking into 100 pages of dialogue and inner monologue.

[Brandi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I normally don't gravitate towards books set in New England around 1648. This book was "based on an actual unsolved murder from the records of Colonial America". This intrigued me, but the book was disappointing. The author would start going off on what the country was doing at the time and would leave the main story.

[Sandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

New England, puritan era, 1600's murder mystery.... wonderful for its depiction of the landscape of Boston and its environs at this time and the extraordinary isolation of the tiny village this takes place in (maybe 10-15 from Boston.) A vision of the great wilderness that was early New England that we rarely see written about.

[Stefanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wish Goodreads allowed half stars so that I could award it another half star. The location and characters are interesting and the crime is intriguing (if horrible and brutal), but the execution consists of a lot of inner monologue and, at the end, a lot of quoted poems and songs. I kept putting it down, which is not a good sign.