murder mystery

Surprising Amish history comes to light

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By Ande Jacobson

The sixteenth Kate Burkholder mystery by Linda Castillo is The Burning. This time, Castillo educates the reader on some disturbing Anabaptist history from the Reformation period. While the Anabaptists as a whole are pacifists, during the Reformation when the Anabaptists were persecuted by the mainstream Christians of the day, a sect arose that embraced violence when necessary in defense of the community. This sect was known as the Schwertlers, or loosely translated “of the sword.” Although its members knew that violence was a sin, they saw the need for it when the community was threatened, and as a group would use a particularly nasty ritual to eliminate threats while ensuring those so sacrificed a place in heaven as martyrs. While it’s thought that this group ceased to exist, an unusual and disturbing case sends Kate down an investigative path that includes digging into the details of this outcast group’s practices. Continue reading →

What you see is not always what you get

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By Ande Jacobson

Linda Castillo’s fifteenth Kate Burkholder mystery is An Evil Heart, and it starts with a horrific murder. An Amish man is murdered on his way to work when his assailant lies in wait along the side of the road where Aden Karn commutes on his bicycle each morning. Aden sees the man and stops. What follows is a horrific and graphic murder at the heart of the story. The obvious question beyond who did it is why would anyone do such a thing? Continue reading →

You cannot escape your past

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By Ande Jacobson

The Hidden One, is the fourteenth Kate Burkholder thriller. Once again Kate’s past is the reason she’s sought. Three Amish men (a bishop, a deacon, and a minister) from a small Pennsylvania village show up in her office asking for her help for one of their flock. Jonas Bowman has been arrested for a murder that occurred almost two decades ago, yet the victim’s remains, the former bishop of the church district Ananias Stoltzfus, have only recently been found. How much the Diener (elected church officials) know of Kate and Jonas’ past is unknown, but they specifically sought her out because they don’t know how to help Jonas. They don’t think he did what he’s been accused of, and they claim to have no idea who committed the crime. They offer to pay Kate for her time, although because she’d be out of her jurisdiction by far, she’d have no official authority which will make it much more difficult to get the information she needs. The men ask her to sleep on it before giving them her answer, though she knows from the start that she has to go. She owes it to Jonas. Continue reading →

Following your dreams can be rough

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By Ande Jacobson

Fallen, is the thirteenth Kate Burkholder thriller, this time exploring the dangers of following one’s dreams. Kate isn’t the only one who left the Amish community when she approached the critical decision point of whether or not to be baptized. In Kate’s case, she never was. Rachael Schwartz was another young woman facing that difficult decision, and she too left the community, but under very different circumstances from Kate’s. Still, when she turns up murdered in a dreary motel room in Painters Mill, Kate catches the case, and it stirs up memories of her own past. She recognizes that she and Rachael never fit in, although their rebelliousness manifested in very different ways. Kate knew Rachael as a child, and she saw that even then Rachael followed her own mind in ways that Kate both admired and knew would cause her trouble as she grew older. Continue reading →

Vigilantism is not the way to go

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By Ande Jacobson

Linda Castillo’s tenth Kate Burkholder novel is A Gathering of Secrets. This time the Amish community goes full vigilante trying to right a horrible wrong. The prologue begins with the suicide of a young woman on the cusp of adulthood with her whole life ahead of her, though it takes some time to link it to an even bigger wrong in the community. The story begins in earnest six months after the suicide with a dramatic barn fire. It takes some doing, but the authorities eventually identify the one victim from the fire, a young Amish man just finishing his rumspringa. By all accounts, the young man was a pillar of the community. Initially, everyone Chief Kate Burkholder and her team talk with sing his praises saying what a tragedy it is that he died, how hard-working he was, and how nice and helpful he was. Despite the praises, Kate senses there’s more to the story of how and why Daniel Gingerich died in that fire. The investigation shows that his death wasn’t an accident. He was locked in the tack room with no way out when the fire was set. The big questions are why anyone would do something so horrific, and who was involved? Continue reading →

Childhood impressions stick around

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By Ande Jacobson

Linda Castillo’s ninth Kate Burkholder novel is Down a Dark Road. This time, Kate finds herself face-to-face with an old childhood friend in a desperate situation. The Prologue starts out two years earlier detailing the commission of a horrific crime. Kate’s childhood friend, Joseph King, was tried, convicted, and sent to prison for the crime of brutally murdering his wife, Naomi. Joseph was Kate’s neighbor for a time during their childhood. She and her siblings were close to Joseph and his family enjoying various summer adventures together. Kate really liked Joseph, and it was reciprocal, although neither expressed anything more than youthful friendship at the time. As a kid, Joseph was responsible, imaginative, and had an easy, carefree manner. Everyone liked him. That all changed when his father died in an accident when he was a teenager. He struggled with that loss, became somewhat distant, and the family moved away to be closer to extended family. Kate hadn’t thought about him for many years until she gets a call from the deputy warden at Mansfield Correctional Institution notifying her that Joseph has escaped and is at large. 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 →

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 →