By Ande Jacobson
Linda Castillo’s fourth Kate Burkholder novel is Gone Missing which picks up where the last one left off and gives readers another wild ride through the Amish community. While the story starts with a tragedy from the past, the suicide of a troubled Amish teen, it delves into a dark corner of the Amish community when fundamentalism goes awry although that doesn’t become clear until late in the story. This time, Kate is asked to join an investigation a little farther from home when a number of Amish teens have gone missing over a period of years. There are numerous cases that on the surface appear to have no connection other than the missing are all Amish teens, but there’s a very dark secret at the core of the case that only with Kate’s help can an expanded team from several counties and the famed BCI eventually crack. Of course the crucial break in the case is Kate’s doing, and once again almost becomes the last thing she does.
As Castillo has shown readers, while the Amish community isn’t perfect, it is by and large peaceful. It is restrictive for those who choose the plain life, but before anyone can pledge their life to the community, they first experience the outside world to some degree. Teens go through a period of a year or two known as rumspringa when they are released from the rules of the Ordnung that governs their lives. They are allowed to explore beyond the Amish community and the community mostly looks the other way. Most teens finish their rebellious years and come back to get baptized into the adult church community pledging to live the rest of their lives under the Ordnung. Only a few do not return after experiencing the outside world being unwilling to again give up modernity for the plain life. Those who don’t return generally didn’t fit in even before they got a taste what life could be like outside of the Amish community.
In this installment, before Kate joins the broader investigation, she has a run in with a group of teens pushing the boundaries even for life outside of the Amish community. On the surface, it appears to be normal high school hijinks, and normally, she and her team would give them stern warnings and then let things go. This time, she can’t just let it go. When she arrives, two girls are in the midst of a nasty fight on a local bridge, and one of the girls is part of Kate’s family – her brother-in-law’s niece, Sadie Miller. Sadie is going through her rumspringa, and her family gives her a lot of latitude. Sadie is talented. She has dreams of leaving the plain life to pursue a career in clothing/fabric design, and she’s good at it. If she doesn’t leave, she’ll have to give up her design activities because the colors she uses and the designs she creates violate the Ordnung. While she is young, her parents look the other way, but they know that they won’t be able to let her continue to create such lavish designs in the future as they are considered prideful. Sadie looks up to Kate because Kate broke from the community to become a police officer. While Sadie doesn’t know all the details of why and how that came about, she views Kate as something of a role model. Later in the story, Sadie becomes one of the missing teens which hits Kate hard but also makes her even more determined to solve the broader case.
Castillo shines a light on an extreme case of fundamentalism creating a monster. The story is fiction, but it doesn’t veer too far from the way some monsters in the real world can be created when fundamentalist views are taken to an extreme, it doesn’t matter the type of fundamentalism. This story involves taking the Amish way of life to an extreme that objectively violates the very rules they claim to honor and protect.
When the case is eventually solved, it’s clear that the perpetrators didn’t start out as monsters, and even once they started committing heinous acts, they honestly think they are carrying out God’s will to save their victims’ souls. Kate is conflicted by this. She understands that they have to be stopped, but the consequences of making that happen are severe.
While the case is solved, mostly, Kate and company note that there is a loose end that might come back to bite them. It’s an unsettling resolution, and time will tell if this case resurfaces later in the series.
Kate’s local team for the portion of the case that involves Painters Mill includes:
- Mona Kurtz – the night shift police dispatcher
- Lois Monroe – the day shift dispatcher
- Jodie Metzger – the newly hired second shift dispatcher
- J. Banks – the youngest police officer on the team
- Rupert “Glock” Maddox – a former Marine and Kate’s most experienced officer
- Chuck “Skid” Skidmore – another veteran police officer
- Ludwig Coblentz, the local coroner and physician
- Roland “Pickles” Schumacker – a retired officer who serves as an auxiliary officer and brings a wealth of experience and expertise to any case
- John Tomasetti – a BCI officer and Kate’s boyfriend
The primary Kate Burkholder series includes:
- Sworn to Silence (2009)
- Pray for Silence (2010)
- Breaking Silence (2011)
- Gone Missing (2012)
- Her Last Breath (2013)
- The Dead Will Tell (2014)
- After the Storm (2015)
- Among the Wicked (2016)
- Down a Dark Road (2017)
- A Gathering of Secrets (2018)
- Shamed (2019)
- Outsider (2020)
- Fallen (2021)
- The Hidden One (2022)
- An Evil Heart (2023)
- The Burning (2024)
- Rage (2025)
There are also a few Kate Burkholder novellas beyond the primary series, but they are side stories and break from the formula and tone of the primary series though still involve Kate and company.
References:
Sworn to Silence, by Linda Castillo
Pray for Silence, by Linda Castillo
Breaking Silence, by Linda Castillo
Gone Missing, by Linda Castillo
A Good Reed Review 