Ice River

In 1789, the neighbors respect Martha Ballard, a midwife from the small town of Hallowell in Maine—not only for her medical knowledge and strong character, but also for her ability to keep secrets, so necessary in a strict Puritan society. Therefore, when in the middle of winter, a man’s body is found under the ice of a river, Martha is the first one summoned to examine it. The dead man is Joshua Burgess, who together with the town judge Joseph North was recently accused of raping the preacher’s wife Rebecca Foster. Martha, who cared for the injured woman, is both a witness and a trusted person of Rebecca—and she suspects that the rapist’s death is not an accident and that something bigger is hidden behind it…