Season of Iron: A Rebecca Temple Mystery

Susan Merskey is freelance writer in London, Ontario.

The most recent Dr. Rebecca Temple book is set in both Toronto in 1979
and Berlin in the 1930s. The trail begins in Toronto when Birdie, the
schizophrenic homeless woman the doctor is trying to help, is murdered.

As alternating chapters shuttle us between Toronto and Berlin, we
eventually learn the answers to a number of questions. Why did Birdie
end up on the streets? Who was she originally? Why does a seemingly
harmless Egyptian national now want to eliminate her and her family? Why
is he afraid of what they could reveal about him?

As the plot unfolds, we glean something of what it was like to be
Jewish in Germany in the 1930s. We follow the fortunes of the Eisenbaum
family and learn how they were gradually stripped of all their rights.
Despite this, the youngest child, Frederika, became a doctor, though she
eventually lost the right to practise and was sent to a concentration
camp. The resolution of the story, in 1979, links Dr. Temple to a family
who has known the worst of two worlds: Holocaust suffering and radical
Islamic intrigue.

There is a subplot involving Rebecca’s sister Susan, who finds
herself pregnant with her third child after a gap of some years. There
are also reminders that Rebecca herself remains somewhat emotionally
fragile after her husband’s sudden death little more than a year ago.

Author Sylvia Maultash Warsh was born in Germany to parents who
survived the Holocaust. Despite some occasionally confusing twists and
turns, her third Rebecca Temple mystery is a definite page-turner.