Dark Hollow

Years after an execution, a widow asks whether the wrong man paid for a murder in Dark Hollow by Anna Katharine Green. Etheridge was beaten to death outside the town of Shelby, and innkeeper John Scoville was convicted and hanged. His wife, Deborah Scoville, never accepted the verdict that forced her and her daughter to leave and change their name.

Deborah returns to confront Judge Ostrander, the respected official who sentenced her husband. The judge has withdrawn from society, but he does not abandon his belief in Scoville's guilt. Given a place in his household, Deborah gains the opportunity to investigate from within. Her position as a maid conceals a determined search for evidence and for the person who actually killed Etheridge.

The clues do not offer simple reassurance. Marks on a walking stick, a knife, a destructive fire, mistaken identities, and old arguments begin to connect the crime with Judge Ostrander's estranged son and with secrets the judge has guarded for years. Deborah must weigh proof that may clear her husband against revelations capable of ruining another family.

Green combines detective plotting with a study of remorse and public honor. The mystery is driven by the cost of reopening a settled case: truth promises justice, yet every new fact deepens the moral burden carried by the people of Shelby.