Sup With the Devil - Abigail Adams rides again

Second book in my R.I.P. XIII reading challenge and last in Barbara Hamilton's excellent Abigail Adams mystery series was Sup With Devil.

The year is 1774, and the nervous patriots of Boston are awaiting the ship from London that will determine the fate of the city and Massachusetts Colony for the crime of dumping crates of tea into Boston Harbor the previous December.

Against this backdrop of tension, Abigail is sucked into life at Harvard College, where her erudite nephew is a scholar, and solves a murder of a student. The story involves pirates, buried treasure, prostitutes, alchemy, and a host of other delightful elements.

I absolutely adore this series, and am so sorry that I don't have another book in the series to read next October. The relationship between Abigail and husband John is simply wonderful, and I enjoy meeting other revolutionary notables such as Paul Revere, John Hancock, and the ever-maddening Sam Adams.

Hamilton gives them believable dialogue and characters, and I appreciate the details she piles on--Abigail having to do her housework (laundry, cooking, child rearing, cleaning, etc.) all while gadding off to Cambridge, Concord, Lexington, and other outlying villages around Boston.

The mystery itself is well-constructed and whodunit neatly hidden for most of the book

A thoroughly enjoyable historical mystery with one of America's leading ladies as the star.

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph Tuesday Intros:

Hosted by Diane @ Bibliophile by the Sea

This is my first time doing this meme. 

My selection is from The Ninth Daughter, by Barbara Hamilton.  It's the first in her Abigail Adams mystery series, and I'm about half way through the book now.

     Abigail Adams smelled the blood before she saw the door was open.   

     In November, Boston didn't reek the way it did in summer, especially down here in Fish Street. The coppery blood-stink cut the more prosaic pong of fish-heads and privies from the moment she stepped through the gate into Tillet's Yard, the way the single thread of gore seemed to shriek at her against the gray of the wet morning, trickling down Rebecca Malvern's doorstep.

I'm really enjoying this book, and Hamilton's Abigail seems very authentic--I keep hearing and picturing Laura Linney, who played Abigail superbly in the John Adams mini-series, and who I think got it right!

Thoughts?