Linda Castillo

By Ande Jacobson

Pray for Silence is the second book in Linda Castillo’s Kate Burkholder series. This one picks up where the first one left off, and Kate and her team are again faced with a horrible crime against an Amish family in the fictional Ohio town of Painters Mill. This time, an entire family is brutally murdered, and it’s up to the Painters Mill PD, led by Chief Kate Burkholder, to stop the assailants from continuing their spree. For a quiet little town, the murder rate appears to be rivaling that of that quaint fictional Maine village of Cabot Cove, but instead of an amateur sleuth like Jessica Fletcher, Kate is a professional crime fighter. She and her team are faced with seven victims from the Plank family, hardworking Amish farmers with a passel of kids ranging from a toddler to older teens. Continue reading →

By Ande Jacobson

Sworn to Silence is the first book in Linda Castillo’s Kate Burkholder series and was first released in 2009. Kate is the chief of police in the quaint, fictional Ohio town of Painters Mill, a small, rural community. About a third of the town’s residents are Amish, and the rest are what the Amish refer to as English, or non-Amish. They had coexisted for centuries until a series of brutal murders occurred. Since that time, the Amish and the police suffer from mutual suspicion. The killer wasn’t caught, but eventually life went on, until, sixteen years later at the time of the current story the killings begin anew with the same signature. A lot changed in that time. For one thing, Kate lived through the first killing spree and has since harbored a secret. Although most Amish children commit to their church and community when they reach 18, Kate took a different path. Continue reading →