In the dead of winter in Maine in 1789 a man is found frozen in the Kennebec River. Martha Ballard, a midwife in her 50’s, is asked to examine the body and concludes that he has been murdered. Martha’s pronouncement and her job as a midwife leads her to learn details of the rape of a woman by two townsmen, one a judge and the other the murdered man found in the river. While Martha tries to uncover the truth about the rape and murder, she encounters many obstacles and discovers a number of well kept secrets.

The Frozen River is a good work of historical fiction. Martha Ballard, who really was a midwife in Maine, is a strong, compassionate, intelligent character. The one drawback to the novel, for me, is that there are a lot of minor but important characters in The Frozen River and I had a hard time remembering who was who.