Gone Missing (Kate Burkholder #4) & Her Last Breath (Kate Burkholder #5) - Linda Castillo

From Goodreads

 

GONE MISSING - Rumspringa is the time when Amish teens are allowed to experience life without the rules. It’s an exciting time of personal discovery and growth before committing to the church. But when a young teen disappears without a trace, the carefree fun comes to an abrupt and sinister end, and fear spreads through the community like a contagion.

 

A missing child is a nightmare to all parents, and never more so than in the Amish community, where family ties run deep. When the search for the presumed runaway turns up a dead body, the case quickly becomes a murder investigation. And chief of Police Kate Burkholder knows that in order to solve this case she will have to call upon everything she has to give not only as a cop, but as a woman whose own Amish roots run deep.

 

Kate and state agent, John Tomasetti, delve into the lives of the missing teen and discover links to cold cases that may go back years. But will Kate piece together all the parts of this sinister puzzle in time to save the missing teen and the Amish community from a devastating fate? Or will she find herself locked in a fight to the death with a merciless killer?

 

HER LAST BREATH - An extraordinarily beautiful Amish woman, a dangerous femme fatale, is the central figure in a story that reveals a dark side of Painters Mill and its seemingly perfect Amish world

 

A rainy night, an Amish father returning home with his three children, a speeding car hurtling toward them out of nowhere.

 

What at first seems like a tragic, but routine car accident suddenly takes on a more sinister cast as evidence emerges that nothing about the crash is accidental. But who would want to kill an Amish deacon and two of his children? He leaves behind a grieving widow and a young boy who clings to life in the intensive care wing of a hospital, unable to communicate. He may be the only one who knows what happened that night. Desperate to find out who killed her best friend’s husband and why, Kate begins to suspect she is not looking for a reckless drunk, but instead is on the trail of a cold blooded killer amid the residents of Painter’s Mill. It is a search that takes her on a chilling journey into the darkest reaches of the human heart and makes her question everything she has ever

believed about the Amish culture into which she was born

 

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MY REVIEW - I think I have learned a few things while reading Linda Castillo's Kate Burkholder series. They are as follows:

 

1. If Painters Mills is a real town, I don't want to go anywhere near it. There is way too much death and deceit going on there and I'm not sure if the police department would be able to keep my ass safe.

 

2. I think I have established an un-natural fear of the Amish. No seriously...

 

3. I will never pass by any abandoned farmhouse and not think of someone strung up in a dirty smelly room.

 

4. I will never look at the Underground Railway and tunnels the same way.

 

5. Everytime I pass a farm and smell manure I think of manure pits and how easily someone could be pushed into one.

 

6. Two words...Abandoned Silos

 

Now about the Book(s) - Kate has more baggage attached to her than a whorehouse full of ex nuns. WTF is wrong with this woman? As the books go on she seems to fall deeper and deeper into despair. She seems to be one of those people who does not learn from her mistakes. She figures out what went wrong at the end, but doesn't figure out how not to eff up the next case. She puts the Amish of Painters Mills on such a high pedestal that she seems to forget that they are people just like the rest of us who make mistakes and are capable of committing all kinds of heinous acts of crime. She may have physically left the faith, but mentally she never left. That is what she seems to struggle with in every book. Don't get me wrong, I love the flawed character. I think that is what makes these book so exciting. However, I'm hoping to see Kate grow a bit if more of these are to be written.

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Uploaded on August 13, 2013
Taken on August 13, 2013