A Gathering of Secrets

February 1, 2018

In this next in the popular Amish mystery series featuring Chief of Police Kate Burkholder, a stately old barn burns to ash with 18-year-old Daniel Gingerich inside. It's no accident, and Kate soon learns that Daniel wasn't the sweet, self-effacing guy he appeared to be. Major promotion.

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June 1, 2018
This is the tenth Police Chief Kate Burkholder mystery (following Down a Dark Road, 2017), and it finds her in a comfortable romantic relationship, with a hint of a wedding in the air. But she still grapples with issues from her long-ago break with the Amish as well as debilitating memories of a traumatic sexual assault in her teen years. When the body of a 19-year-old is found during Rumspringa, the Amish running around time?the young man was burned alive in the locked storage room of a historic barn?Kate determines that the cause of death was murder and ponders who would want the well-liked victim dead. Further crimes heighten the complexity and suspense. The Amish tenet of separation from the rest of society always makes Kate's investigations difficult, but this time it escalates into a conspiracy to hide a truth that no one wants to talk about, with the lines blurring further between the sin of pride, to be avoided at the soul's peril, and the practices of shaming, shunning, and revenge. Another strong entry in a New York Times best-selling series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

May 28, 2018
Bestseller Castillo addresses the topic of sexual assault in Amish communities in her riveting 10th mystery featuring Painters Mill, Ohio, police chief Kate Burkholder (after 2017’s Down a Dark Road). When 18-year-old Daniel Gingerich’s death in a barn fire is ruled
a murder, Burkholder searches for a motive. His family and friends insist he was well-regarded and had no enemies, but conversations with his peers gradually reveal another story. As Burkholder learns more about Gingerich, she grapples with painful memories from her own adolescence and finds herself empathizing with his killer, while her partner, Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation agent John Tomasetti, offers a countering view. Castillo’s sensitive handling of her subject matter builds a nuanced, often troubling picture of insular, patriarchal communities in which silence allows predators to thrive. Details of Amish crafts, family life, and commerce contrast with the ugliness of the crimes, and despite a convoluted resolution and cursorily resolved subplot, armchair travelers should find this a satisfying outing. Author tour. Agent: Nancy Yost, Nancy Yost Literary Agency.