Fans of Linda Castillo will love this look at the Amish community, filled with mystery and forbidden love.
Twelve years after Nathan Fisher left his Amish roots behind, his father’s death takes him back to Mississippi, where he grapples with confusion and self-reflection.
Driven by a desire to help his sister, who was born with a heart defect, Nate left home and pursued a career in professional baseball, hoping to earn enough money to get her a heart transplant. His dreams didn’t come true, and in his job as a deputy sheriff in Oklahoma, he’s been involved in a deadly shooting. Despite being cleared of wrongdoing, Nate can’t shake the guilt that haunts him. He returns home for his father's funeral knowing he’s not welcome, and even his mother refuses to speak to him since he’s under the Bann, a strict Amish law applied to those who leave. The one person who does want to talk to him is Rachel Hostetler, the love of his life, who married after waiting four years for his return. Rachel has two children, but her husband vanished three years ago, and she lives with her father. Rachel’s brother, Albie, supposedly hanged himself. Her father burned Albie's clothes and the rope and buried him in secret. Rachel, who can’t believe Albie would die by suicide, seeks Nate’s help. Albie was being bullied by a group of well-connected "Englisch"—non-Amish—boys Rachel thinks beat and murdered him. A deputy who’s willing to listen helps get the body exhumed, raising new riddles only Nate can solve. Though they seem to have no future, Nate can’t leave Rachel until the truth is revealed.
Fans of Linda Castillo will love this look at the Amish community, filled with mystery and forbidden love.Pub Date: June 24, 2025
ISBN: 9798892421249
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crooked Lane
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
A slow-burn mystery held together by an admirable cast of strong, flawed women.
A young woman returns as police chief of her hometown in New Jersey’s Pine Barrens only to find herself challenged by a local drug ring and a haunting cold case.
Chief Callie Hauser has been back in Pine Lakes only a few months when she has to arrest her mother for drunk driving. Jenna’s struggles with addiction shaped much of Callie’s childhood, but she never knew their root. Now she finds out that when Jenna was 16, she discovered a dead baby in the woods. Investigating the Baby Doe case leads Callie to a long-missing teenager, Sabrina Riley, but overall, her attention is occupied by more recent concerns: an uptick in the number of drug overdoses in town; her friend Jane’s slow recovery from a recent hit-and-run; and the fact that Jenna goes missing after being released from jail. Stretched to the breaking point, Callie finds some solace in Adrian, a cute scientist she meets by the river, but she can’t help worrying that the old case and new case are connected—particularly when she discovers that she and Baby Doe share DNA. Mullen plays a bit with perspective and time, choosing to narrate some chapters from another character’s point of view as well as to experiment with second-person narration, but this is truly Callie’s story. Mullen doesn’t shy away from exploring the echoes of trauma within families and communities, and the way some stories are ignored or silenced, but Callie’s strength and moral compass ground the darker aspects of the novel. Like so many modern thrillers, this is a tale about the things men do that hurt women, both casually and with vicious intent, but through Callie, Mullen also offers hope that by standing alongside one another, women not only survive, but preserve the stories of those they have lost.
A slow-burn mystery held together by an admirable cast of strong, flawed women.Pub Date: June 9, 2026
ISBN: 9781250400574
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
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