Following on the critical and popular success of his first two mysteries, P.L. Gaus again explores the moral and legal dilemmas that confront Professor Michael Branden, Pastor Caleb Troyer, and Sheriff Bruce Robertson as they attempt to get to the bottom of the outbreak of murder and mayhem that suddenly afflict their Amish friends and neighbors. Professor Branden is troubled immediately by aspects of the fatal buggy crash, which also kills two drivers and a deputy and leaves the sheriff badly burned and hospitalized. Branden's suspicions darken when a bank official serving as trustee of the dead Amishman's estate goes missing. Arson, a murder, and fisticuffs soon cloud the picture further. These unsettling events occur against a backdrop in which the peaceful, stable Amish seem themselves unsettled by forces beyond their control.
Some Amish teenagers appear to have formed a cult and engage in a spate of robberies.
A few barns have secret phones, and more than a handful of cell phones are tucked nightly under goosedown pillows. Two Amish families own vans, for which they hire drivers. They're not going to be able to farm. Branden and Troyer struggle to piece together clues that connect stresses in the Amish culture with a seemingly random wreck on a sleepy country road. P. L. Gaus teaches chemistry and a course in alternative cultures at The College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio.