The Burning
A Novel
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3.0 • 1 Rating
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Chief of Police Kate Burkholder investigates a gruesome murder that reveals a little-known chapter of early Amish history in this next riveting installment of the bestselling series by Linda Castillo.
Newlywed Chief of Police Kate Burkholder is awakened by an urgent midnight call summoning her to a suspicious fire in the woods. When she arrives at the scene, she discovers a charred body. According to the coroner, the deceased, an Amish man named Milan Swanz, was chained to a stake and burned alive. It is an appalling and eerily symbolic crime against an upstanding husband and father.
Kate knows all too well that the Amish prefer to handle their problems without interference from the outside world, and no one will speak about the murdered man. From what she’s able to piece together, Swanz led a deeply troubled life and had recently been excommunicated. But if that’s the case, why are the Amish so reluctant to talk about him? Are they protecting the memory of one of their own? Or are they afraid of something they dare not share?
When her own brother is implicated in the case, Kate finds herself not only at odds with the Amish, the world of which she was once a part, but also the English community and her counterparts in law enforcement. The investigation takes a violent turn when Kate’s life is threatened by a mysterious stranger.
To uncover the truth about the death of Milan Swanz, Kate must dive deep into the Anabaptist culture, peering into all the dark corners of its history, only to uncover a secret legacy that shatters everything she thought she knew about the Amish themselves—and her own roots.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Unimaginable violence from both the past and the present sparks this tightly wound thriller. For Ohio police chief Kate Burkholder, the ritualistic killing of an Amish man—burned at the stake—should be problem enough. But her brother’s potential role in the man’s death adds a bureaucratic nightmare for not just her but also her new husband, Detective John Tomasetti. Having grown up in that community, Kate is uniquely qualified to handle an Amish murder, but her time to solve the case is dangerously short. Castillo throws in some dark historical twists that heighten the intrigue. The push-pull of Kate straddling the “English” and Amish worlds ensures that she’s in a minefield no matter where she’s standing. The Burning is a feast for mystery-thriller fans.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
At the start of Castillo's enthralling 16th mystery featuring Painters Mill, Ohio, police chief Kate Burkholder (after An Evil Heart), Kate's colleagues find the charred body of 36-year-old Milan Swanz bound to a stake in the middle of the woods. Milan had a reputation for drunkenness and disorderly conduct, but Kate is still surprised to learn that he'd divorced his wife and been excommunicated from Painter Hill's Amish community a few months earlier. On further investigation, Kate learns Milan had made several enemies in recent years, including Kate's brother, Jacob. When one of Milan's neighbors claims to have seen Milan and Jacob in a physical altercation days before Milan was killed, the sheriff arrests Jacob for Milan's murder, despite Kate's protests. Though she's taken off the case, she remains determined to prove her brother's innocence, and pulls her husband into an off-the-books investigation—which she continues even when a masked stranger threatens her. Well-shaded characters, near-perfect pacing, and a fascinating glimpse into Ohio's Amish community mark this as another winner for Castillo. This series is nowhere near out of steam.
