As a Quaker, I greatly enjoyed this book ... sort of Miss Marple the Quaker (member of the Religious Society of Friends), about an elderly woman who feels Led to help solve a murder involving her Meeting. My only quibbles are that the author tried a wee bit too hard to make Friends appear unusual ... e.g., writing such things as "The two Friends walked down the street," etc., which no one would ever say or think. (One of the tenets of our faith is that we do not pass judgment on others -- so we're known for fitting in and getting along, despite not drinking, swearing, dancing, etc. As such, we do not stand out that noticeably, and you would no more say "The two Friends walked down the street" than you would "There goes a Baptist!") Likewise, we have unprogrammed worship wherein we sit quietly, waiting for the spirit of God to touch us and often inspire us to share something with the group. Although outsiders call it silent worship, *WE* don't. Also, the main character complained so much about her arthritis that I thought it related to the case's solution ... In the real world, however short of the mark we may fall, we nonetheless strive to be thankful for all that we have, rather than whining about what we lack.

However, that's just quibbling -- and probably something with which only a Quaker would find fault. If you enjoy comparatively light mysteries (no profanity, sex, vulgarity, or fast-paced, high-level spy themes) with a Miss Marple type of elderly woman thrust into the role of sleuth) and would like a glimpse of the Quaker beliefs, you should greatly enjoy this book. I certainly did!

No blood and guts, no drooling perverts, no wisecracking cardboard characters -- just a really good mystery written with a careful eye and a sort of spare simplicity that's appealing and fun to read. Less discerning readers may find Elizabeth Elliot a bit pedestrian -- but, what do they know? I love the way Elizabeth applies her deep faith, as well as her mature and healthy skepticism, to solve the mystery. Put the kettle on the stove and lose yourself with this wonderful book.

I appreciated the information on the Quaker tradition, and that the heroine is not a super hero or private sleuth. She is an interesting person dealing with the modern world. I look forward to reading more about Elizabeth.

The stories about the history, his family and the Indians around his life gave me a new perspective about this time in history. Ivan, an engineer, has told a story in this book about his experiences and involvement in the transformation of our nation from the 'old west' to the modern technological age. I have always been in awe of people who have had challenging life experiences. It was fun to read this book and see how all these experiences have shown God's leading in Ivan's life.

Ivan Allen is my uncle. (my mothers brother) I was very happy that he wrote this book because it brought back many memories dating back to when I would visit my grandparents farm in Sumner, Oklahoma. When I saw the photographs of my grandparents, (uncle Ivans parents) and his children and family, I got a very nostalgic feeling. Sumner, Oklahoma is a simple, hard working farm community in northern Oklahoma and when I read Uncle Ivans book, it brings back a lot of good memories which I will never forget that I had as a child growing up. The old wooden raft (a very heavy wooden raft it is!), is still located somewhere in Sumner, Oklahoma, probably sitting in the corner of a farm pasture near the Allen homestead. I would like to find that old raft and let Uncle Ivan know where it is located and possibly even buy it and give it back to him.. Ivan Allen is a fine christian man with high morals and dignity and I respect him very much. I only wish that I lived closer to him so that he and I could talk about the old homestead and listen to some more of his early childhood experiences at Sumner, Oklahoma. I highly suggest reading his book "Bad Times and Then There Was God" because it will enlighten you on the early times of northern Oklahoma history with sad,serious and funny stories of the past. Its great!

Ivan Allen is a personal friend of mine. He and I have known each other for about one year. After reading his book, I feel honored to know him more and make the most of every opportunity to talk to him. The stories and adventures that Ivan relates in his book are very compelling and exciting. My children regard his experiences as many do Laura Ingalls Wilder in her famous biographical stories.

One of the things I like about the Society of Friends is that no one can claim to speak for it, and that includes me. However, I have found all this author's works to be different from any Quakerism I've experienced. It's possible that she's speaking from real experiences that I don't share, but I wince to think that we're being encountered through these books by people who will never encounter us in any other way.

This is the 3rd Quaker Mystery that I have read by Irene Allen! It is a wonderful book dealing with real life Quaker issues! I felt it was a refreshing twist on your typical mystery. I am looking forward to reading her next one - Quaker Indictment. I am Quaker and the religious aspects of the book are true to the religion! It also was a fun book to read!! I hope others will read Irene Allens Quaker Mysteries!

I love reading mysteries, but am often troubled by the situations and the content. I stumbled on Irene Allen's book, Quaker Testimony, at MacIntyre's Fine Books and Bookends at the Village of Fearrington, near Chapel Hill, NC (a wonderful bookstore, by the way). This book tells a good story, reveals some very interesting and very deep characters, and touches on some extremely important issues for our time -- like the place of faith in our lives, the importance and role of faith communities, and the need to accept our brothers and sisters in faith at their word and support their convictions, even when we don't always share them ourselves. The main character, Elisabeth Elliot, is the Clerk of the Quaker Meeting in Cambridge, MA. She is in her 60s, a widow, and a very thoughtful, caring, yet sober and "good" character, in every sense of the word. She has strong convictions and isn't timid about sharing them when necessary. But she does so in a sensitive and compassionate way, with very positive results. I hope this books finds a wide readership among people who enjoy a good mystery but who can't stomach the harshness of writers like Patricia Cornwell all the time.

As a British Quaker, this book was of considerable interest to me. The picture it portrays of American Quaker life was a surprise in some ways - the intensity of the faith and the faithfulness of daily behaviour struck me as extremely 'other worldly'. Elizabeth is a likeable woman, and concern for her kept me reading. However, the actual mystery was very predictable almost from the first, and the somewhat contrived accumulation of accident, would-be suicide and ultimate detection is not especially well structured. It is, however, courageous to write about murder amongst Quakers, and the Peace Testimony is very well explored, in the light of imperfect human beings, and their capacity for sin and self-deception. Rebecca Tope

Elizabeth Elliot, protagonist of Quaker Testimony by Irene Allen, is the Clerk of a Quaker Meeting in Boston. At the center of this book is the question of what one must do when one's beliefs clash with the compromises most of us find necessary to live in modern society. The secondary question is how a community deals with those who choose to live by their beliefs when those beliefs appear to threaten some in that society. One Quaker family takes literally the teaching about war and refuses to pay that portion of their income taxes which goes to the military. Instead they donate this money to a society promoting peace. (As chapter introductions Ms. Allen includes statements of belief and action from various Quaker authorities.) The IRS is prepared to seize their last asset, their home, but the wife, Hope, is murdered before this can happen. Elizabeth is a suspect at first, and she feels compelled to investigate because this murder could bring dishonor upon the whole Quaker community. Elizabeth is a very believable character, independent, almost prickly with anyone who threatens or challenges her independence, but fully aware that at age 67 there are many things she physically cannot do. The story is very interesting and the dilemma a very real one. My only quarrel with the book is the style of writing. Ms. Allen, I think, tells too many of the quotidian activities of each day, things I do not need to know in order to enjoy the story, know the characters and understand the crime. The details sometimes slow the story down and pull me out of what is happening. I become aware that I am reading a story, not living it. In spite of this, I recommend the book for it forces the reader to think about the compromises we make between what we believe and what we must do in order to live in this world

I was quite surprised to learn from the biography at the end of "Quaker Witness" that author Irene Allen "is a Harvard- and Princeton-educated geologist" -- what I had found most disappointing about QW was the depiction of a fictionalized Harvard paleontology department, having spent much of my life in or associated with scientific academia, and in predominantly male departments (math, computer science, physics, astronomy, relevant because of the sexual harassment theme). The tone just somehow didn't ring true, more reminiscent perhaps of several decades ago than the early 90's when this was supposed to take place.

I have read others of Allen's series about Elizabeth Elliot -- an elderly woman living in Cambridge on the edge of Harvard, member and Clerk of the local Friends (Quaker) Meeting -- and found them rather enjoyable because of the Quaker background, the local Cambridge color, and Elliot's personal life. The somewhat stilted writing had seemed appropriate to my assumptions of the deliberate pace of Quaker life and views. But when this same tone is applied to the world of academic infighting and striving, it makes me reevaluate my confidence in her portrayal of things Quaker.

A list of just a few things that struck me as "off", compared to my own experience and observation: It seems odd that a graduate student would still be living in a dormitory after, presumably, several years at a school, as heroine Janet Stevens is; it requires *some* sort of explanation. Allen writes "the word 'prayer' ... seemed inappropriate from a science student [Janet], educated to secularism." I don't know any scientist who would say or believe this, much less a grad student with interior urges to religion. Many scientists have deep and sincere religious beliefs, and while it would be considered inappropriate to start a lecture with, say, "Jesus brought me here today to present this equation he inspired", most consider faith or lack of faith irrelevant to the value of the science produced: it's not important whether God or simply chance guided your hand to that fossil, but what the fossil says about life. (The above quote also seems inconsistent with another student's devoted Catholicism.) The cutthroat competition Allen portrays, even paranoid secrecy, among grad students is very foreign. Students are constantly bouncing ideas off each other, collaborating, helping each other out. Also, though students and non-tenured faculty do put in long hours, as Allen describes, that is as much through fascination with their work, deadlines, and sometimes the need to keep an experiment or observation going for an extended period without funds to hire more assistance, as it is desperation for advancement. The crucial piece of apparatus, the "oxygen line" which released the poisonous gas used to murder the evil professor, is described several times. While probably technically correct (though incomplete: where does the carbon come from which combines with the released oxygen?) I find it bizarre that a scientist would not also bend the ear of the unwary visitor with extensive description of *why* they were extracting the oxygen from ancient fossils (presumably to measure isotope ratios which would tell about the climate). While I'm sure there were a decade ago, and still are, departments with the resolutely anti-female attitudes of Allen's Harvard paleontology, this has hardly been SOP for decades. Incidents, nowhere near as pervasive, I heard of in the 60's and 70's were regarded as shocking, or at least tasteless, anomalies. Contrary to the near uniform shunning by fellow students that Janet suffered, in real life the woman in a largely male department is eagerly sought out, and has been for decades.

Nonetheless, this is still an engaging book, and the mystery aspect is quite well thought out.

I have previously enjoyed Irene Allen's Elizabeth Elliot novels, especially as she has revealed the rich community setting of a Quaker meeting and the inner spiritual life of her protagonist Friend. I was tremendously disappointed in this book. Allen removes Elliot from her natural location, and, as Elliot spends the novel commenting on her dislocation, so the reader feels dislocated as well, with no reward. The circle of Friends whom Elliot relies on is gone, and the characters and suspects she encounters here are not developed enough for us to care. The reader is told much but shared with not at all. I hope if Allen continues to write this series that she returns Elliot to her home in Cambridge and novels that are more fully developed.

I really loved all three of the previous books in this series. I am not a Quaker, nor even a Christian, but I was deeply interested in Elizabeth Elliot and her spiritual journey, which complemented in a very suitable way the mystery story in each book.

I had some difficulty in believing that the same author had written this book. It was preachy, unfocussed, digressive and completely unsatisfying, all things the previous ones were not. I have much sympathy with the political position the author takes in this book, but it's a d**n poor mystery story, and not even a good political rant, as each gets in the way of the other. Distressing.

The "old Quaker", as she is constantly and irritatingly referred to in Quaker Indictment, should not have left Massachusetts. The mystery is simplisticly plotted, the characters are one dimensional and the political pronouncements are banal. I read a lot of mysteries, I have always been interested in Quakers and I love the Northwest. This novel, which should have had so much going for it, was a disappointment on all counts. Make another choice.