One hundred years after the Salem witch trials, an accusation of being a witch in New England still spurred fear and the risk of censure, if not bodily harm. This is the reality in the 1790s around which Eleanor Kuhns’ new novel, “The Devil’s Cold Dish,” is built. Blood feuds and religious intolerance abound in the small community of Dugard, Maine.

The story, the fifth in a series, turns around weaver Will Rees, who grew up in Dugard, and his new wife, Lydia, a Shaker who is pregnant with their first child. They live on a farm outside of town with David, Will’s teenage son from his first wife, who died, and four children that they’ve taken in to care for. Rees travels a lot, buying and selling cloth, and is looked upon by many in town as someone who puts on airs. In truth, he has grown somewhat aloof, having experienced a larger world outside of the community he grew up in.

The blood feud is between him and his younger sister, Caroline, who has been jealous of him since childhood. Caroline’s husband, Sam, fell during a fight he had instigated with Will. Sam suffered brain damage as a result, and Caroline blames her brother for making her husband weak-minded. She repeatedly demands that Will and Lydia take her family in, because her husband can no longer work and they now live in poverty.

Will and Lydia help as they can, but refuse to allow Caroline’s family to join them on the farm. Early in the book, Caroline starts a rumor that Lydia, having been a member of a suspect Shaker community, is a witch. Thus, things are set in motion.

Will is suspected of ambushing and killing a town bully. When the local milliner is found hanging by his heels in his grist wheel with a ritual-like set of candles encircling him, Lydia is suspected in his death. When a mob comes to arrest her, she hides, and ultimately at Will’s insistence, returns to the community of Shakers she grew up in while he works to solve the murders. Subsequently, he is forced into hiding when Sam, too, is found murdered.

“The Devil’s Cold Dish” is completely plot-driven. Though it is entertaining, substantive character development is spotty. One of the more intriguing story elements involves the relationship between Will and David, his teenage son, who has had to carry the burden of running the farm while his father is away traveling. There is lingering resentment between David and his father for his having been left for a time after his mother died in the care of his Aunt Caroline and Uncle Sam, known for physically abusing family members. Father and son must come to rely on one another for the safety of their family, and David makes a major personal sacrifice to maintain his father’s cover while he is in hiding.

Kuhns skillfully turns the complicated plot to an unexpected conclusion. “The Devil’s Cold Dish” is a tale of deceit and jealousy, and how easily fear can be manipulated to pit neighbor against neighbor, a story with eerie relevance in these modern times.

Frank O Smith is a Maine writer and ghostwriter whose novel, “Dream Singer,” was named as a finalist for the Bellwether Prize, created by best-selling novelist Barbara Kingsolver. Smith can be reached via his website:

frankosmithstories.com

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