*THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER**SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOLFSON HISTORY PRIZE**A TIMES, SUNDAY TIMES AND BBC HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR*’A bona fide historical classic’ Sunday Times’Simply one of the best history books I have ever read’ BBC HistoryIn the frontier town of Springfield in 1651, peculiar things begin to happen. Precious food spoils, livestock ails and property vanishes. People suffer fits and are plagued by strange visions and dreams. Children sicken and die. As tensions rise, rumours spread of witches and heretics, and the community becomes tangled in a web of spite, distrust and denunciation. The finger of suspicion falls on a young couple struggling to make a home and feed their children: Hugh Parsons the irascible brickmaker and his troubled wife, Mary. It will be their downfall. The Ruin of All Witches tells the dark, real-life folktale of witch-hunting in a remote Massachusetts plantation. These were the turbulent beginnings of colonial A