A love story wrapped around a murder mystery, set in seventeenth-century ManhattanIn 1663 in the hardscrabble colony of New Amsterdam—today’s lower Manhattan—orphan children are going missing and residents suspect a serial killer. The list of possible culprits is long and strange. Among those looking into the mystery are a shrewd young Dutch woman, Blandine van Couvering, and a dashing Englishman, Edward Drummond, whose newfound romance is threatened by horrible accusations.
In this spellbinding work of historical fiction, Jean Zimmerman relates the harsh realities of life in early Manhattan, re-creating the sights, smells, and textures of the rough settlement surrounded by wilderness and subject to political turmoil. Compulsively readable and filled with New York history,The Orphanmasterwill delight fans of Caleb Carr, Hilary Mantel, and Geraldine Brooks.
Praise for
The Orphanmaster:
“
The Orphanmasteris a sweeping novel of great and precise imaginative intelligence; it's also the most entertaining and believable historical novel I've read in years. Jean Zimmerman is a debut novelist who already writes like an old master. Read any page of
The Orphanmasterand you'll become an instant fan.”
– Darin Strauss, author ofHalf a LifeandChang and Eng
“Jean Zimmerman's seventeenth-century New Amsterdam teems with enough intrigue, lust, and madness to give our twenty-first-century Big Apple a run for its money. And money is what drives this book – liberating, corrupting, forming the only bulwark against a terrifying, chaotic New World. Zimmerman's wit and humanity shine light in a dark woods, creating an uncommonly rich debut.” – Sheri Holman, author ofThe Dress Lodger
“Here’s American hlƒ~
![The Orphanmaster A Novel of Early Manhattan [Paperback]](/itemImage/2/9/2/5/2_653489.jpg "The Orphanmaster A Novel of Early Manhattan [Paperback] xxx")