The Orphan Master by Jean Zimmerman

The year is 1663 but all is not well in the city of New Amsterdam.  Someone is taking orphans and the colony prides itself on looking after these lost souls.  The children are found later, murdered, mutilated and even cannibalized.  Who could be doing such horrific acts?

The orphan master comes under suspicion as he has the most access to the children as he arranges work or families for them.  But suspicion also falls on others, from wealthy black sheep from the best families to a huge former slave to an Indian who believes himself to be the witika, a spirit which lived on human flesh. 

The governor, Peter Stuyvesant, realizes that this is a crisis and informs his rudimentary police force that the killer must be discovered and captured.  But there are others working on this as well.  Edward Drummond is an Englishman new to the colony.  He presents himself as a trader but in reality is an English spy sent to America to find the whereabouts of three men who signed the death warrant for King Charles I.  Blandine van Couvering is a female trader who has gained her living after starting as an orphan herself.  She looks after the African Americans in the colony as well as befriending Kitane, the Indian whose illness makes him believe in the witika.  Blandine and Edward fall in love and race to find the killer at great personal cost.  Blandine is named as a witch while Edward's spying is discovered and he is condemned to hang for treason.  Can the killer be found in the midst of this uproar?

Jean Zimmerman has written both a compelling colonial mystery as well as giving the reader an accurate peek into the daily life of a Dutch American colony.  The Dutch settlers were different from the English in many ways, one of which was their tolerance of more freedom for women as displayed by the women traders to be found.  The intermingling of the various factions is also displayed in a positive fashion as well as the inevitability of the Dutch losing their foothold in the Americas.  This book is recommended for readers of historical fiction and mystery.