"Jean Zimmerman is a debut novelist who already writes like an old master. Read any page of 'The Orphanmaster' and you’ll become an instant fan.” – Darin Strauss, author of "Chang and Eng"

New Amsterdam, 1663. In the tiny Dutch colonial enclave that will soon become New York City, the settlers drink their beer, consume their sausage, and haggle over religion and beaver pelts. All seems well on the surface, but there are specters haunting the town. Hostile clashes with native peoples remain a constant danger. From both the north and south, the expansion of English colonial interests jeopardizes the independence of New Amsterdam. But the greatest threat is mysterious and unthinkably brutal. One by one, the children of both the town and the settlement of Africans just outside its walls are vanishing, although, curiously, the only victims are orphans. As anxiety escalates among the people of the island, more grisly facts emerge: the children have not only been abducted, but killed and cannibalized.

Suspicions mount, falling upon several denizens of the colony. What sordid plots might be brewing in the mind of Lightning, a half–European, half–native man whose ominous presence sends chills through all but the most complacent colonists? What is really going on within the mansion of the wealthy and influential Hendrickson clan, a glowering edifice that looms darkly and enigmatically among the fashionable homes on Market Street? How much trust can one afford to place in the colony’s governor, the stern, one–legged Petrus Stuyvesant? And, perhaps, most important, what role in the disappearances is being played by the seemingly kindly Aet Visser, the man officially charged with protecting the welfare of the colony’s orphans? Practical and industrious, the orphanmaster has helped countless children to better lives, though his own moneybags have fattened in the process. Visser is known to all as “an angel of death, appearing whenever parents perished.” (p. 32) However, the question of which side of his nature will triumph over him—death or the angel—remains unsettled.

The task of solving the mystery falls upon an unlikely quartet of characters: Blandine van Couvering, the beautiful and shrewd young “she–merchant” who has learned to make her way in a man’s world; Edward Drummond, a loyal subject of the English crown bent on tracking down and assassinating the men who sent his late sovereign Charles I to the scaffold; Antony Angola, a seven–foottall African who once escaped execution only because no one could find a rope strong enough to hang him, and Kitane, a native trader given to obsessive guilt and bizarre fits of madness. Also in the mix, a mute orphan boy called William, who starts out victimized and winds up a hero. In each other, Edward and Blandine find love. But will they find the killers of the children before scandal and horror bring their world crashing down?

Tense, relentlessly paced, insightful in its philosophical and social commentary, The Orphanmaster takes the genre of the thriller literally and figuratively into parts unknown. A true roller coaster of a novel, it raises its readers to the pinnacles of horror and plunges them into the depths of despair—and, remarkably, lets them off somewhere in the general vicinity of redemption. From its chilling start to its heart–pounding conclusion, The Orphanmaster is an unforgettable ride.