Series Synopsis - Linda Castillo

Linda Castillo lives in Texas

Kate Burkholder, Amish Thriller series 

Police Chief of an Amish community called Painter's Mill, in Amish Country (Holmes County) Ohio.
          Kate was born and raised Amish, but left the order as a teenager because of traumatic events in her life.  She's a really likable person, a smart - and tough - cop, and wily investigator.  Her slowly developing relationship with John Tomasetti is a part of the stories.  His past is incredibly troubled (his wife and two daughters were murdered to get back at HIM), and their relationship goes through all sorts of ups and downs.  However, they're so beautifully interwoven that her current murder investigation and her relationship really, really work together well..

1 - Sworn to Silence (2009) It appears that a serial killer has returned to Painter's Mill after a 16-year absence.  And a grizzly murder becomes very personal for Kate Burkholder.
2 - Pray for Silence (2010)  A whole Amish family, tortured and murdered. The investigation eventually settles around the 15-year old daughter, Mary Plank, through her diary.
3 - Breaking Silence (2011) Four Amish children are orphaned when their parents and uncle are murdered in their manure pit. When other Amish are targeted in cruel ways, Kate finds all sorts of obstacles because of the silence of the Amish community.
4 - Gone Missing (2012)  Kate and Tomasetti examine the lives of four or five Amish teenagers who have g,all one missing in recent years or weeks, knowing that the answers are NOT that they ran away.
5 - Her Last Breath (2013)  Kate's childhood best friend's husband and two of her three children are killed when their buggy was creamed in a tragic hit-and-run.  Kate soon discovers it was not an accident, but murder and begins unearthing the clues.
5.5 - Long Lost - a short story (2013) While Kate and Tomasetti are relaxing in a small Bed-and-Breakfast outside of town, they solve the mystery of the ghostly disappearance of a teenager twenty years before.
6 - The Dead Will Tell (2014) Kate and Tomasetti are living together, which makes this reader very happy. In 1979 an Amish furniture-maker was murdered and his home burned down, killing four of his five children.  His wife was kidnapped by the murderers (never to be seen again), and his 14-year old son was the only one to escape.  The abandoned Hochstedder farmland has been said to be haunted ever since. The crime was never solved.  Now, almost 35 years later, someone is murdering the murderers.

In 2013 there was a TV movie made of the first book called An Amish Murder.  It would be GREAT if there were more!  Neve Campbel made a very believable Kat Burkholder. It still appears, once in awhile, on Lifetime.

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