Pray for Silence

Kate Burkholder is Chief of Police in Painters Mill, in Ohio’s Amish Country. Kate herself left the order at 17 and later began a career in law enforcement. She is uniquely suited to her position, since she is (mostly) able to bridge the cultural divide between Amish and English. But when an entire Amish family is brutally murdered, Kate can barely hold herself together let alone investigate the crime.

This was a really good second book in the series. Linda Castillo’s portrayal of the Amish community is sensitive and well researched. The crime investigation and personal story were balanced just right, and I enjoyed the development of Kate’s character and her relationship with John Thomasetti from the state Bureau of Criminal show more Investigation. I’ll be back for more soon ... show less

Was Amish teenager Mary Plank living a double life, and did her secrets get her and her family killed? Chief of Police Kate Burkholder is driven to solve the grisly murders, and clues might be found in Mary's diary. The investigation is aided by Kate's sort-of-love-interest BCI agent John Tomasetti. The novel's plot and unusual (though not fully accurate) setting of Ohio's Amish country held my interest, but repetitious prose and two over-emotional protagonists undermined a story I might have otherwise believed in.

The repetition became most irritating in regard to Kate's emotions. Over and over, she tells the reader that this case is "the kind of scene that affects even the most hard-nosed of cops" (p. 34), that "some crimes are simply show more too terrible for the eyes to behold" (p. 36), that she "can't imagine the horrors these girls must have endured" (p. 37). On and on the melodramatic inner monologue continues--throughout the entire book. Often, Kate expounds in full paragraphs that the horrible awfulness of working this crime is harder on her than anyone else, due to her past. By 100 pages into the book, I could hardly ask "whodunit" anymore, because I was asking other, more irritated questions: did the author think her readers would forget that Kate used to be Amish after reminding us (for the twentieth time) less than ten pages ago? Did the author think the best way to elicit my sympathy for her character was for Kate to tell me all about her angst? Did no one edit this book?

Still, let's say the book had been edited to about 75% of its current length. That wouldn't fix the two protagonists, who can't seem to behave objectively even at the risk of their case. First, we have Kate's overreaction to just about everything. A belligerent suspect calls her a dirty name, so she hits him with her nightstick. A suspect flees through a cornfield, so she chases him blindly and without backup. (And what was she doing at the crime scene alone in the first place?) She's had a long day, so she goes to the bar in uniform and gets "alcohol-fuzzed." Bait is required, so she sets herself up to be utterly alone when the suspect takes said bait. Not to mention she gets choked up and/or just breaks down crying multiple times.

Then there's Tomasetti. His characterization is clearly a play for the female reader's sympathy, the Controlled Cop Brooding Over Dark Past. But who can feel sorry for this guy? He's on mandatory leave pending psych evaluation for failing a drug test, yet he shows up in Kate's town to assist her investigation, because he "needs to work." Worse, he doesn't tell her at first that he's there unofficially. Worst, when Kate finds out, there's no confrontation. No, "What is wrong with you, my case could be completely screwed!" Instead, she says she "understands" his need to be in the field, and they keep working together. Never mind that every interview he's been on and every piece of evidence he's touched are at best compromised and at worst entirely inadmissible. And of course, they also spend a night together, because nothing says "focused on the case" like sleeping with your colleague. Most annoyingly, none of these lapses in judgment have any consequences.

I won't be coming back for more from Linda Castillo. Her prose repeats itself like a first draft. Her descriptions of the crime scene are unnecessarily, almost disturbingly detailed. Her characters' behavior (and therefore her plot) ignores realism in favor of drama. Ultimately, the only thing I felt while reading Pray for Silence was frustration. show less

**.5

The writing is so incredibly corny, it's practically a self-parody.

The police work is laughable as the investigation is conducted haphazardly and out of order, and there are too many inconsistencies and errors to list, but here's a couple to get an idea of how bad it is.
Rather than review the videos that might contain the suspect, Burkholder instead spends the day with a sketch artist and an unreliable witness to see if they can figure out what he looks like.
Images downloaded from the Internet are printed out for review, but instead of emailing the original files, they send the hard copies via messenger to the crime lab.
Sometimes it takes 40 minutes to drive 20 miles from one side of the country to the other, but when someone is show more needed to be in a place at a particular time, they manage to arrive in 5 minutes.

To make things worse, the cops are truly despicable people. They drink and drive, bully, threaten, or assault just about everyone they interview, flout regulations and procedures whenever they are inconvenient, and conspire to lie about it all to evade censure.

The writer clearly relished the Amish ultraviolence, providing gratuitously lurid descriptions of the defiled corpses of rape and murder victims, gleefully detailing the skull fragments for each and every headshot. But in case we didn't get the picture, she then repeatedly lets us know that the bodies are in such a state that even seasoned homicide detectives, military veterans, and the coroner were horrified. This trend of telling us how everyone feels persists throughout the book. It's not enough for a character to turn red, ball their hands into fists, and shout obscenities, we must also be informed that they are angry.

It should go without saying at this point that the plot was unrealistic, the relationship drama nauseating, the dialogue stilted, the pacing uneven, the characters wooden. But for some reason, despite how objectively terrible it's still pretty entertaining. Just don't think too much. show less

Kate Burkholder grew up Amish. A horrible event when she was 16 made her leave her faith and Painters Mill, PA behind. She returned as an adult to take the job as local police chief. She understands the community, the Amish, speaks Pennsylvania Dutch, and loves the community. But it presents special problems at times. She is shunned by the Amish because she left her faith. There is such a cultural difference between the English and Amish in the small community. But, Kate Burkholder loves her job, even when it's difficult.

In this second book in the Kate Burkholder series, an Amish family is horrifically murdered at their rural farmhouse. Seven people dead...even the children. It all seems to relate to the 15-year old daughter, Mary and show more her secret relationship with a non-Amish boy from town. Kate has to find out who Mary was involved with....and why it may have led to the deaths of her entire family.

I love this series! Kate is a strong, driven and intelligent woman. She does her job 100%, even when it slams her with memories of her past. She works through the strained relationship with her former Amish community members the best she can, always reminded of the life she left behind. The contrast of the modern world and the Amish plain life is so marked. And when the two clash, as often happens in the major crimes Burkholder and her department investigate, it is never a pretty picture.

There are 10 books in the series, with the 11th book coming out in July. I previously read the first four books in the series several years ago and then somehow lost track of this awesome series....probably while waiting for a new book to come out. My huge TBR can be distracting...and those were years before I started using Goodreads and a blog to keep track of my reading. When I got an egalley of the newest book, Shamed, for review, I decided to re-read the series from the beginning before jumping into the new book. I am so glad I'm revisiting this series....and reading all the books I missed.

I enjoyed this second book in the series. The crime is quite gruesome and all of the characters have a really rough time reconciling why anybody would brutally murder and torture an entire Amish family. Quite suspenseful! A very enjoyable book!

Moving on to book 3, Breaking Silence. I have the book downloaded from my local library already! And book 4 is also waiting in the wings! I love this series! show less

Pray for Silence
5 Stars

Painter’s Mill Chief of Police, Kate Burkholder, is called to a horrific crime scene at the Plank farm where the entire family has been brutally murdered. As the Planks secrets slowly come to light, Kate uncovers a depraved web of evil that threatens the peace and tranquility of her supposedly innocent small town.

Intense from the very first with a crime that is both heartbreaking and sickening.
***Warning:*** The descriptions of the crimes are dark, disturbing and even stomach churning.

The villain is an exceedingly cold-blooded and twisted sociopath. The suspect pool is varied, and even though some are obviously red herrings, it is still difficult to narrow down the focus despite the obvious motive and clues show more that lean in a particular direction. In this respect, Castillo’s writing and plotting is excellent as she keeps you guessing right up until the end. Nevertheless, I did manage to figure out most of it - I had the right suspects but the wrong hierarchy.

Kate’s relationship with state agent John Tomasetti is very complex. Although they are open and honest with one another about their personal issues and conflicted feelings, they are wary of taking things to the next, emotional level. It will be interesting to see where this goes as they both desperately deserve to be happy.

All in all, an excellently paced story with a hard pounding climax and satisfying resolution. Kathleen McInerny’s narration is gripping and the last 2 hours had me on the edge of my seat. show less

Chief Kate Burkholder is called to the Plank farm where she finds the entire Amish family of seven murdered. Who would commit such an act in small Painters Mill and why? Kate has little to go on. So is this an act of a serial killer from the outside this small community or has some town member done the unthinkable? Kate enlists the help of her friend John Tomasetti from the Ohio BCI but will that be enough help to solve the case? One drawback for me is the graphic description of the killing & torture of the two murdered girls. This is still a good read.

Pray For Silence was a good mystery on the whole, but it annoyed me several times. The first wasn't the author's fault. By coincidence, I'd listened to another book with the same evil scheme not long before listening to this one, so I spent a CD or two waiting for Kate Burkholder to figure out one of the reasons for the gruesome slaughter of a family.

A big revelation about the Painter Mills Chief of Police was no surprise. I do thank Ms. Castillo for not dragging it out as long as another writer once did.

It would be nice if current mystery writers would watch Mythbusters. I'm sure I'm not the only mystery fan who watches the show -- and then gets irked when an author uses a technique or phrase that's been disproved.

On the other hand, show more I did like the description of the debilitating effect an anxiety/panic attack can have on the person who suffers from them. (I was much luckier than Tomasetti when I had one while I was driving.) I also liked the unflinching way Ms. Castillo shows how Kate and John's boozing impairs their ability to do their jobs.

This book came out before we got to learn so much about police brutality. I cringed when Kate lost it with a bigot, but the fact that her own capacity for violence later disturbed her helped.

The villain was so smugly certain of his own superiority that it was really satisfying when Kate gets to tell him about a major mistake he made.

Like Kate, I felt very sorry for the naive Amish girl whom the villain exploited.

Bigotry played a large role in this mystery. It's rather ironic that bigotry saved the life of one member of the slain family.

This is a mystery well worth reading. My local library's copy of the third book, Breaking Silence, is already checked out and waiting. show less