GONE MISSING returns us to the out of the ordinary world of
Kate Burkholder. She is former Amish and now Police Chief
of Painters Mill. Her friend and lover, John Tomasetti
calls her to help with a case of missing Amish girls. Their
romance that they are at this point still keeping on the
quiet is beginning to build and with their pasts pressing
at them it feels very real. He called her to help because
she understands the Amish and speaks Pennsylvania Dutch and
because he wants to see her. Clearing up her duties and
putting one of her men in charge, she drives to Cleveland
to join him and his team of Ohio Bureau of Criminal
Identification and Investigation better known as BCI and
begins the work of finding the missing girls.
The team compiles other missing girls and one young boy and
begins the investigation by contacting the parents and
meeting with them. The Amish have a distrust for the
English and especially police so there is a bit of
reticence in talking to them but Kate with her
understanding of the ways of the plain life and the
language manages to get them to tell her things that seems
to link the missing girls. The girls are all at the age
where they are questioning staying Amish and are doing
things like smoking, drinking, cursing, and dating that the
Amish consider deep sins. It becomes even more urgent when
one of the girls that Kate knows goes missing.
Living in Ohio, I know a lot of the places the author
mentions, and found it exciting to hear about a part of my
own world, and parts that I have only driven through. Ms.
Castillo gives an informative insight to a group of people
that many misunderstand which I have a new respect for
the strength they must have to live their lives the way
they do. There were a few times that I found it got a
little thick with some of the procedural information but
the dialogue is smooth, easily followed and despite the
circumstances sometimes humorous. Something I personally do
not like is a cliffhanger and the final few paragraphs of
the last chapter and the epilogue felt that way to me. This
by no means takes away from the exciting and thought
provoking series that I hope continues for a number of
years and would recommend to anyone who wants to read a
different type of mystery.
Rumspringa is the time when Amish teens are allowed to
experience life without the rules. It’s an exciting time of
personal discovery and growth before committing to the
church. But when a young teen disappears without a trace,
the carefree fun comes to an abrupt and sinister end, and
fear spreads through the community like a contagion.
A missing child is a nightmare to all parents, and never
more so than in the Amish community, where family ties run
deep. When the search for the presumed runaway turns up a
dead body, the case quickly becomes a murder investigation.
And chief of Police Kate Burkholder knows that in order to
solve this case she will have to call upon everything she
has to give not only as a cop, but as a woman whose own
Amish roots run deep.
Kate and state agent, John Tomasetti, delve into the lives
of the missing teen and discover links to cold cases that
may go back years. But will Kate piece together all the
parts of this sinister puzzle in time to save the missing
teen and the Amish community from a devastating fate? Or
will she find herself locked in a fight to the death with a
merciless killer?
© 2003-2025 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy