The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon

 Martha Ballard was a midwife/healer in Maine in the 1780s. Over the course of her long career, she delivered over 1000 babies and never lost a mother. Considering the state of medicine in the 1700s, that is pretty amazing. And even more amazing is that this book is based on a real person.

The story starts in winter, when a body is found under the frozen Kennebec River. The dead man had been accused of rape and was generally not well liked, so there are a lot of possible suspects. Rebecca, the woman who got raped, said the dead man came to her house that night with another perpetrator--the local judge. A lot of the story resolves around the trial for the rape and the search for the murderer. It's quite a compelling story about life in small-town Maine in the early days of the country. And Martha is quite an impressive woman.