WPLongform

The past matters

A Good Reed Review Book Review , , , ,

By Ande Jacobson

The twelfth Kate Burkholder novel, Outsider, delves into Kate’s more recent past. The Prologue starts with a deadly and graphic raid where the target, Gina Colorosa, barely escapes. Gina is the person who helped Kate the most when she first left the plain life. At present though, Gina has troubles, and she quickly brings them to Painters Mill. She’s a detective with the Cleveland PD, but there’s far more than readers are aware going on with the raid. She’s badly injured and barely gets away, but as she gets to Painters Mill, she encounters a horrific blizzard, and crashes her truck into a tree. As Gina comes close to freezing, Adam Lengacher happens by in his sleigh with his three young children. Adam is an Amish man who lost his wife only a couple of years before and is doing the best he can. Their initial meeting is less than ideal, but despite Gina’s off putting manner, he rescues her and brings her to his home to get her out of the freezing cold. She tells Adam to contact Kate Burkholder which he does. So begins a convoluted and dangerous adventure. The trouble that Gina left behind eventually follows her putting Adam and his children at risk, but Adam is model of Amish good will. When somebody needs help, he doesn’t judge them. He helps them. Continue reading →

Writing can be therapeutic

A Good Reed Review Commentary & Pubs , ,

By Ande Jacobson

I’ve kept a journal since I was a child, although in recent years I’ve not made many entries. In some ways, the essays I write have taken its place helping me delve into things that I’m thinking about. Sometimes that means writing up thoughts on books I’ve just read or delving into a concept that intrigues me. Often though it involves taking a step back from current events and sorting out something that’s bothering me. That last category has covered a lot of ground over the last several years. Along with an increased focus on politics and the historical significance of various policies and actions, it drove me to add a history and politics page to my commentary library. Continue reading →

Gossip and faulty assumptions can backfire

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By Ande Jacobson

In Linda Castillo’s eleventh Kate Burkholder novel, Shamed, the Amish don’t always get it right even when their intentions are noble. Seven years before the main story takes place, something happened in the middle of the night that would later haunt a family in Painters Mill although the story doesn’t start there. This time, the story begins with what should be a happy fall afternoon when Mary Yoder takes her two granddaughters, Elsie (age 7) and Annie (age 5) Helmuth to the abandoned farm down the road where Mary had played as a child to pick up fallen walnuts. Mary and the girls begin their task picking up walnuts that have fallen from the trees, the girls playing some along the way. After a while, Mary notices some movement in the house that should be empty, so she goes to investigate. The girls eventually follow her into the house, and unfortunately for Mary, it doesn’t end well. Beyond her demise, Elsie is taken by the perpetrator leaving Annie screaming and running from the scene. Continue reading →

Vigilantism is not the way to go

A Good Reed Review Book Review , , , ,

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

A Good Reed Review Book Review , , , ,

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 →

The US at 250

A Good Reed Review Commentary & Pubs , ,

By Ande Jacobson

We are quickly approaching the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. That should be cause for celebration. 250 years ago, the fledgling colonies did something momentous. They threw off the bonds of tyranny and royal rule and emphatically declared that they were to be self-governing. They weren’t without discord, but together they wanted something different from whence they came. Continue reading →

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

A Good Reed Review Book Review , , ,

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 →