The dangers of being on the inside

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By Ande Jacobson

Linda Castillo’s eighth Kate Burkholder novel is Among the Wicked. This time, Kate goes undercover back into the plain life. After Rachel Esh, a fifteen-year-old Amish girl, is found frozen to death in the woods near a small rural New York town, Ohio BCI agents John Tomasetti and Lawrence Bates along with Frank Betancourt of the BCI division of the New York State Police kind of ambush Kate in her office. They need her help. Because of her background, they want her to go undercover and pose as an Amish woman to get to know the community and find out what’s really happening there. The circumstances surrounding the girl’s death are suspicious, and it’s not the first strange occurrence in the community since Eli Schrock, the new bishop, came to town. The community is more isolated than most Amish communities, and something just doesn’t seem right. Kate knows the language and the life from her upbringing, so she’s in the perfect position to infiltrate and help figure out what’s happening. After they give her an overview of the case, they conference in the local sheriff, Dan Suggs, to get a more complete picture of the suspicious things happening, although he really doesn’t know much more than what they lay out. Continue reading →

Why be good?

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By Ande Jacobson

I’ve long held that it doesn’t take faith for somebody to be good, or more to the point, to be a good person. What exactly is a good person though? Realistically a good person is one who treats others with respect and who sees beyond their own nose striving to do what they can for the greater good. This isn’t about politics. It’s about science, philosophy, and survival.

I’m reminded of a conversation with a friend many years ago. He was raised in the Catholic tradition, but as an adult he no longer practiced and claimed to be agnostic with respect to his belief. Still, he couldn’t escape a certain amount of fear that was instilled in him during childhood. I was explaining some of the differences between Christianity in general and Judaism. Judaism, aside from not centering on Jesus, lacks any afterlife and by extension the concept of heaven and hell. He was stunned. He wanted to know why somebody would be good if there was no threat of being sent to hell if they weren’t. He had no concept of the need for the greater good other than as a defense against eternal damnation. I guess he wasn’t quite as agnostic as he thought. Continue reading →

Dangers abound from nature and from man

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By Ande Jacobson

Linda Castillo’s seventh Kate Burkholder novel is After the Storm. In a sense, this book feels like a brief respite from the shocking crimes that Castillo has brought forth in the series so far, at least early on. Of course, when Kate Burkholder is involved things get complicated rather quickly. The book starts out with a celebration with Kate and John enjoying the company of Kate’s family for a change. Before the afternoon is out, a massive storm and tornado descends upon the little town of Painters Mill. Some areas are hit harder than others, and Kate and John attempt to help where they can. In the immediate aftermath, they attempt to rescue a young woman and her infant from a mobile home that has been ravaged by the storm. Another part of the cleanup involves a troop of Boy Scouts cleaning out the remains of a barn that was a storm casualty when they discover some bones. Continue reading →

Criminal acts can haunt multiple generations

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By Ande Jacobson

Linda Castillo’s sixth Kate Burkholder novel is The Dead Will Tell. This time, Castillo takes readers on a different kind of journey. It still heavily involves the Amish community, and the crimes are serious involving a mystery that at first appears to be almost supernatural. It’s not, but that makes the perpetrator even more disturbing.

The book starts in the past, introducing readers to the Hochstetler family. One fateful night, a horrific crime that wasn’t planned takes place. The planned crime was supposed to be a quick robbery, and nobody was supposed to get hurt. As with many Amish families, the Hochstetlers kept a large amount of money in their home, proceeds from their furniture business. The eldest son, fourteen-year-old Billy, was bragging about their practice one day to a local Englischer teen trying to sound cool. The other boy then tells his friends about what Billy told him. What was initially just joking around became a plot that went horribly wrong. Instead of just taking the money and getting out, the intruders ended up killing the father, trapping the kids (all five of them) in the basement, and kidnapping the mother. As a further complication, the house catches fire from a lantern, though it takes some time before the cause of the fire is revealed. Billy is the only survivor. He’s taken in by the Yoders, another Amish family who adopts him, and he changes his name to Hoch Yoder to keep some remnant of his original surname intact. Continue reading →

Sociopaths can come from anywhere

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By Ande Jacobson

Linda Castillo’s fifth Kate Burkholder novel is Her Last Breath. Once again, Castillo dives deeply into the Amish way of life as tragedy strikes a young family. Paul Borntrager is coming home late one evening from a doctor’s appointment with his three young children when their buggy is hit by a speeding vehicle. The collision is catastrophic, and Paul and two of the children are killed at the scene. The only survivor is his eldest son, although it’s touch and go for a while as he too suffers life-threatening injuries in the crash. The buggy is completely destroyed, and so begins a grisly case that uncovers a truly disturbing plot that takes some time to unravel. Continue reading →

Religion can be dangerous

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By Ande Jacobson

I don’t have any faith in any supernatural being(s) based on everything I’ve learned throughout my life, although based on observation, I came to that conclusion in childhood. I have studied science and rely on the scientific method in my exploration of the world around me. I have also studied religion growing up, not just the faith in which I was raised, but others as well. I have copies of numerous religious texts including an Old Testament (from which the Torah is drawn), a New Testament, a Qur’ân, a Book of Mormon, a Haggadah, and a Union Prayer book. I view them as literature written by men reflective of the times in which they were written. I do not view them as supernatural or divinely inspired. They are books, and as such, they are food for thought as are all books. Continue reading →

The demons within

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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. Continue reading →

Fond memories of Washington, D.C.

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By Ande Jacobson

Although I am a Californian through and through, over the course of about 10 years, I spent a lot of time in the Washington, D.C. area, first for two vacation trips, then later for work. All of these trips, save the last one, took place before massive changes were enacted, and I got to do and see some things that are no longer easily accessible to the public. Continue reading →

It is tough to be an American these days

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By Ande Jacobson

I am not a journalist. I am not a celebrity. I am just an American. I spent my career working as a software/systems engineer for a couple of major government contractors. I also grew up during a time when history and civics were required courses in primary and secondary school. In fact, as I’ve mentioned in some previous essays, I went through school during a time when we studied Watergate as it was happening. That made civics come to life in a spectacular fashion. While I am no expert, from my studies and my work experience, I have some knowledge of our nation’s history and how our government is supposed to work, and right now, it is not working as it should. Continue reading →

Monsters in the dark

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By Ande Jacobson

Breaking Silence is the third book in Linda Castillo’s Kate Burkholder series, and it’s another fast-paced thriller with plenty of twists and turns. This one again exposes some of the ills plaguing the local Amish community. To start, both parents and a visiting uncle are found in a manure pit by their four children. There’s a frantic attempt by Kate and company to rescue the victims, but by the time they eventually get the people out of the pit, none survive. Two were already dead, and the third was too far gone to save. Kate and team initially think an accident caused them to fall into the pit. Noxious gases that emanate from the pit can collect in an enclosed space that isn’t properly ventilated and that can cause someone to lose consciousness or worse. Their initial theory is that one of the men was overcome by the gases and fell into the pit. They think the other two suffered the same fate as they tried to rescue the first man. Further investigation shows that wasn’t the case, and that at least one of the men was struck in the head before he either fell or was pushed into the pit. So begins a grueling investigation to determine who would commit such a heinous crime leaving four Amish children orphaned. Continue reading →