{"id":1975,"date":"2016-06-26T11:03:11","date_gmt":"2016-06-26T18:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=1975"},"modified":"2016-06-26T11:03:11","modified_gmt":"2016-06-26T18:03:11","slug":"linda-castillo-among-the-wicked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/linda-castillo-among-the-wicked\/","title":{"rendered":"Linda Castillo: Among the Wicked"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"512arl5LsTL._SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_\"The first chapter of this novel is a master class on how to kick off a gripping thriller. We meet an unnamed woman as she sneaks out of\u2014somewhere?\u2014we just find out it\u2019s very cold and she has to be quiet. We join her on her escape and ultimate chase and death, caring about her more and more the more we read. In indelible strokes and in a short amount of space\u2014only 9 pages\u2014Castillo introduces her story conflict, brings us a character we care about and are invested in, and establishes a vivid setting. Really, if you want to write a gripping crime novel, this would be a great chapter to check out as an example. But if you\u2019re a reader, like most of us, you\u2019ll simply want to find out what\u2019s next.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s next is Chief Kate Burkholder, out on one last call\u2014she admonishes an Amish buggy driver about using reflective signage when he\u2019s out on the road\u2014an incident that quickly sets Castillo\u2019s scene in Painter\u2019s Mill, Ohio, in the heart of northeast Ohio Amish country. As she returns to her office to check in with her staff, she\u2019s waylaid by a couple guys from BCI who, as it turns out, want her to go undercover. Kate\u2019s boyfriend, John Tomacetti, a BCI agent himself, is against it.<\/p>\n

As it turns out it seems something is amiss in an Amish settlement in upstate New York, and Kate, being not only female but actually Amish and fluent in Pennsylvania Dutch, seems like a perfect choice. Tomacetti has his doubts, as undercover operations can go wrong in so many ways. Nevertheless, Kate is set up with a cover story, a new identity (\u201cKate Miller\u201d) and a rented mobile home. On arrival, moving into the grim home out in the woods with spotty heating and no chance to use electric light (being Amish), only lanterns, she starts to regret her choice, but she soon makes headway in the community.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s apparent before too much time has passed that something is very, very wrong, from the Bishop who rules the community with an iron fist, to the mysterious Amish youth on snowmobiles apparently abusing women, to the culture of no talking where the Bishop is concerned, either out of fear or respect. Kate thinks it\u2019s a mix of both things. As she herself is drawn into a more and more dangerous situation\u2014and Castillo expertly uses winter weather as an added foe in Kate\u2019s struggles\u2014the level of corruption in the community turns out to be high.<\/p>\n

Castillo is a thriller writer but she\u2019s also a flat out mystery writer, so her plot structure, clues, and suspect pools are almost traditional. It\u2019s an interesting and enthralling mix. I especially enjoyed this novel as we finally get to understand some of Kate\u2019s roots in the Amish community, the reasons she loved it and the reasons she left it. It serves to flesh out her character even more, and at this point, seven books into a terrific series, Kate Burkholder seems like she should be a real living, breathing human being. And isn\u2019t that why so many of us love series fiction?\u2014the characters, the \u201cwhat happens next\u201d to them as people. The great stories are the bonus cherry on the cupcake to books that reconnect us with fictional characters who feel like old friends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first chapter of this novel is a master class on how to kick off a gripping thriller. We meet an unnamed woman as she sneaks out of\u2014somewhere?\u2014we just find out it\u2019s very cold and she has to be quiet. We join her on her escape and ultimate chase and death, caring about her more … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[13],"class_list":["post-1975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-suspensethriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1975"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1977,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1975\/revisions\/1977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}