This was a difficult case with a difficult solution. While the plain and simple ways of the Amish are visited, this is more a story about the effects of violence and how this small police force and its chief deal with overwhelming challenges. This is necessary to show the conflict within the Chief, one that drives the plot. The facts are presented as they are discovered, as in any police procedural, but there is some time shifting between the present and 16 years prior when Kate was attacked. Chief Burkholder holds it together despite her personal secret of her own assault, something that still shames her. Graphic and violent in parts, the images portrayed are disturbing. Wary of each other, Kate and John are thrown together as they search for clues and yet another victim is discovered. His bosses want to fire him as dead weight so hope he will self-destruct on this assignment. The local Sheriff brings a couple of deputies, and the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and Identification sends John Tomasetti, a man on the edge following the murder of his family. When a second victim killed in the same manner is discovered, Kate has no choice but to call for help. How was it possible then, that after the four victims that year with the Roman numerals carved in their abdomens, that now a new victim numbered much higher has been discovered? The victim had been killed in the exact same manner as the Slaughterhouse Murders 16 years ago, when Kate had been one of the survivors of the brutal serial killer, a fact not known by anyone outside her estranged Amish family, for she had shot the man dead. It’s been a couple of years since her return when Kate is called out to tend to a nude, female body found in a snowy field. Kate speaks Pennsylvania Dutch as easily as she downs a drink after a tough day. When she returned to her hometown ten years later to tend to her dying mother, the town council knew they had the right person to replace the retiring police chief, someone who knew the ways of the world and the ways of the Amish and could bridge the two communities. Her innocence shattered by an encounter with the Slaughterhouse Killer when she was 14, Kate left town to attend college and the police academy. The sleepy, rural town is watched over by its police chief, Kate Burkholder, born and raised Amish, one of the few who decided not to join the church when she was old enough. The Amish and the “English” have lived side by side yet separately in Painters Mill, Ohio for decades. Kindle version from Minotaur Books (June 23, 2009) 367 pages

Listening Length: 11 hours 45 minutes ASIN: B002ER24OW Unabridged Audiobook from Macmillan Audio (June 25, 2009)

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