The Midwife of Venice

US: Anchor Canada, 2011. Paperback. Very Good. A copy that has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. At midnight, the dogs, cats, and rats rule Venice. The Ponte di Ghetto Nuov o, the bridge that leads to the ghetto, trembles under the weight of sacks of rotting vegetables, rancid fat, and vermin. Shapeless matter, perhaps an imal, floats to the surface of Rio di San Girolamo and hovers on its greasy waters. Through the mist rising from the canal the cries and grunts of for aging pigs echo. Seeping refuse on the streets renders the pavement slick a nd the walking treacherous. It was on such a night that the men came for Hannah. -- Hannah Levi is known throughout sixteenth-century Venice for her skill in m idwifery. When a Christian count appears at Hannah's door in the Jewish ghe tto imploring her to attend his labouring wife, who is nearing death, Hanna h is forced to make a dangerous decision. Not only is it illegal for Jews t o render medical treatment to Christians, it's also punishable by torture a nd death. Moreover, as her Rabbi angrily points out, if the mother or child should die, the entire ghetto population will be in peril. But Hannah's compassion for another woman's misery overrides her concern for self-preservation. The Rabbi once forced her to withhold care from her shunned sister, Jessica, with terrible consequences. Hannah cannot turn away from a labouring woman again. Moreover, she cannot turn down the enormous fee offered by the Conte. Despite the Rabbi's protests, she knows that this money can release her husband, Isaac, a merchant who was recently taken captive.