Karen belonged to the Highland Park Women’s Mystery Group beginning in 1995. Besides hours of enjoyment and discovering unfamiliar authors, she learned that no book pleases everyone. In fact, despite having read over 200 mysteries, the book group was never unanimous in their reaction to a book.

Discussion Questions for Book Groups:

1. Would you like to have lived during the American Revolution? What do you find appealing about that era? What would you not have liked? If you could time travel and go for a visit, what would you like to see and experience?

2. Do you think Abigail was being unpatriotic by staying at Raritan Tavern during the British occupation? What would you have done in her place?

3. From your experience with teenage girls, do you feel the tension between Abigail and her daughter (Beth) was typical? Was Abigail being sufficiently careful about her daughter’s well being? Is there more she could have done?

4. Abigail says that her childhood schooling at a Quaker Dame school influenced her beliefs. At the time of this story she says she is conflicted with the Quaker belief in pacifism and the daily reality of the war. Do you think she has resolved this conflict by the end of the book? Have you ever experienced a conflict between what you were taught (at home, in school, in your religious upbringing) and what you experienced?

5. The practice of indentured servitude had the dual purposes of providing many people to settle the vast territories of the colonies and giving those individuals the chance of a better life. Allowing that any system has individuals who will use it for their own villainous ends, do you think indentured servitude was a just system and that it fulfilled it’s basic purposes?

6. Abigail describes Uncle Samuel as “infamous” and as “making revolutionary mischief.” What is his role in the story? Do most families have such a character?

7. Who is the antagonist (the bad guy) in this story?

8. One of the conventions in mystery fiction is that the reader feels justice (legal, moral or psychological) has been achieved by the end of the story. Did you feel there was justice at the end of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Murder?