I've got a bee in my proverbial bonnet, and it has been stinging me repeatedly for several years now.

Allow me to explain:  I love reading biographies, especially biographies of fairly ordinary women who lived fairly ordinary lives.  One of my favorite biographies is about a woman who lived through very trying circumstances approximately 150 years ago.  Her courage and perseverance seemed very admirable.  I've read a number of books by the author, and I've found her work to be admirable as well.

However.....yeah, there's that dangerous word "however".....given what I'm about to say next, I won't name the book or shame the author.

I discovered quite by coincidence that the author left extremely vital information out of her manuscript.  The husband of the woman in the biography was a participant in the brutal pre-meditated murder of over 100 innocent men, women, and children, and it is quite possible that she was an accessory after the fact.  The author never once makes any allusion to this horrifying event.  In her book, it is as though a massacre has never taken place.  But, alas, it most assuredly did happen.

Well.  Where do you go from there?  What would you do?

It's futile to lay judgement on someone who has been dead more than 100 years and about whom there is limited documentation, especially concerning a historical episode that has been remained very, very hush-hush to this day.  

However, when a present-day author decides to play havoc with the truth by  failing to report something so important that she cannot possibly have overlooked it in error, that she must have chosen not to include it in her work for whatever reason, then that's a different kettle of fish because it calls into question every single historical study she has ever written.  If she cannot be trusted in this matter, she cannot be trusted in any.  It completely discredits a book that I have loved for years. The author could have used the opportunity this book offered to shed light but instead she shuttered it.  How is it possible to rely on the words of such a person?

The author is still active, still writing on historical subjects, quite a well-respected and well-regarded person.

I have no status or standing.  I am merely a reader of books.

But I am considerably bothered about what I see as a falsehood and a misrepresentation.  And I have been bothered about this for years.  I believe that if I say nothing, then my silence is every bit as reprehensible as the author's own so I have written a strongly worded letter.  Something must be said.

It is only reasonable to require those who have the power of influence to tell the truth.  That is the very least that readers should be able to expect.  Someone should say something.  If we have the courage of our convictions then we must recognize that "someone" is the face we see in the mirror every day.