Dangerous Women

The Rajah Quilt is one of Australia's most treasured textile artifacts and I have been lucky enough to see it in museums on a couple of occasions. It was in private ownership in Scotland for over 140 years before being discovered and purchased for the people of Australia. (See here.)

The true stories behind the twenty or so convict women who contributed to it - and free pasenger Kezia Hayter who who oversaw the project - are all important in their own right, and there are many descendants of the participants alive in Australia today.

With that in mind, I was a little wary of this fictional retelling of the voyage that has been in my TBR pile for a while, as I was concerned it might not be sympathetic to the historical reality or create unnecessary falsehoods about the real people involved.

In 1841, the ship Rajah is on a voyage to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) with 180 female convicts and Kezia Hayter, a protegee of prisoner reformer Elizabeth Fry. Three months into the voyage, Hattie, one of the convict women is stabbed by an unknown assailant and hovers between life and death. It seems nobody saw what happened and Captain Ferguson, Dr Donovan and another free passenger the Reverend Davies, begin an investigation. Kezia does what she can to make sure the women get a fair hearing but the closer the ship gets to its destination, the more mysterious the crime seems to get. There are a few romances to add some light relief.

Told in fluctuating time periods, we slowly learn about these women. Kezia's story is in third person, and that of a likely suspect, Clara, in the first person. Another style of narrative that seems to be compulsory these days in historical fiction and can be disconcerting for those who prefer more streamlined storylines. Many of the convict women are bawdy or argumentative, some are simple, or just quiet or religious, and the cross-section of characters is well-handled. The ending is satisfying with a good twist. 

Putting historical truth aside, this is a novel that should be read mainly as an entertaining murder mystery and is recommended on those grounds. (Apart from the captain and the free passengers, none of the names of the real convicts have been used and they can be researched via archives. See also Patchwork Prisoners, the real story.)
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Three-and-a-half stars.

Note: different covers for this book, depending on your location!
Seems to be already out of print in Australia, try remainder/second hand bookshops.

amazon.com (audio)

​amazon.co.uk

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