The Dead Will Tell: A Kate Burkholder Novel
Sometimes, setting mirrors action in crime fiction, but other times, the beauty or tranquility of a landscape serves to heighten the horror of the crimes that unfold against it. Such is certainly the case in Castillo’s Kate Burkholder series, starring the police chief of Painters Mill, Ohio, seemingly a near-bucolic community set in the midst of Amish country. In this sixth installment, Kate must connect the dots linking a horrendous 1975 robbery-gone-wrong (reminiscent of In Cold Blood)—an Amish man was killed, four of his children died in a fire, and his wife disappeared—and a string of 2014 murders suggesting that the victims may have been involved in the decades-old crime. But why has the revenge-fueled killer waited so long to begin extracting his or her pounds of flesh? Castillo effectively combines an airtight plot with a revealingly complex look at what can happen when a fissure develops along the fault line separating an insular community from the secular world. As always, the introspective but determined Kate straddles both worlds with remarkable dexterity. Castillo shows again why the phrase “gritty Amish mystery” is no oxymoron.      HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The Kate Burkholder series has steadily grown in popularity, turning up recently on the New York Times best-seller list. An aggressive marketing campaign, combining national trade exposure as well as library and social media, will help ensure that it stays there. --Bill Ott