Rage

Review by Booklist Review

Castillo's latest Kate Burkholder mystery (after The Burning, 2024) has the police chief in Painters Mill, Ohio, a small town in the heart of Amish country, facing a series of gruesome murders. Samuel Yutzy, a young Amish man, is found shot to death, his dismembered body buried in woods outside town. The body of a second victim, Samuel's friend, has been stuffed into a barrel. Then a young Amish woman is found dead, apparently shot while trying to evade her killer. Kate is determined to solve the disturbing and perplexing murders and begins the tedious investigative work, hitting dead end after dead end. Undaunted, she finally finds evidence that the murder victims were involved in a vicious sex-trafficking ring, a deeply troubling situation she never expected to confront in Painters Mill. Eventually, after nearly becoming a victim herself, she uncovers the brutal truth and ensures the killers are brought to justice. But the young women who've been trafficked will bear a lifetime of scars that may never heal. A gripping, shocking story--fortunately with some lighter moments to offset the violence and tension--from a gifted, award-winning writer who knows how to grab readers and keep them riveted from first page to last.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Edgar winner Castillo's satisfactory latest adventure for ex-Amish police chief Kate Burkholder (after The Burning) plunges the investigator deep into an Ohio crime ring. At the outset, a 911 call summons Kate and officer Glock Maddox to rural Sweet Potato Ridge Road, where three Amish children have discovered a severed hand while playing in a nearby creek. A search of the area turns up more remains, and the victim is identified as 21-year-old Samuel Eicher, a local Amish man who owned a landscaping business. Despite strong resistance from Samuel's peers, who distrust outside interference in the Amish community, Kate and her husband, Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigations agent John Tomasetti, manage to gain small footholds of trust. Then the body of Samuel's best friend, Aaron Shetler, is found at the bottom of a ravine, and Kate learns from an anonymous source that both men had been hanging around shifty characters with ties to illicit smuggling. Kate remains a tough, appealing heroine, and Castillo sustains steady momentum over the course of the investigation. This may lack the dramatic highs of the series' best entries, but it gets the job done. (Sept.)

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

A series of brutal murders rocks the quiet community of Painters Mill, Ohio. A young Amish girl playing hide-and-seek in a brushy area near a creek finds dismembered body parts. The early years of police Chief Kate Burkholder, who grew up Amish and has come to terms with leaving that life behind, give her insight into crimes committed in her county, which has a large Amish population. Although there's always some crime among the Amish, something about the killing and dismemberment of landscaper and nursery owner Samuel Yutzy has a big-city feel. Kate's husband, John Tomasetti, is an agent with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation who provides the services small-town police departments lack. Kate and John knew Samuel, and when they check his place of business, they find a dehydrated buggy horse and a lot of blood. Samuel's parents admit that he had a wild rumspringa--a period when Amish youth try out the secular world before committing to the church--which included a girlfriend and some shifty non-Amish men, but say that he'd recently returned to the fold. A picture of the girlfriend leads them to a gentlemen's club, and his parents reveal that he was being sued by someone over a landscape job gone wrong. When Kate tries to find Samuel's best friend, Aaron Shetler, she learns that he's been missing from work, and soon his body is found stuffed in a drum. Searching for the girlfriend gets Kate drugged and warned to drop the case. Never one to give up, she discovers a tangled web of deceit and a link to human trafficking that just may be the death of her. Slippery suspects and evildoers among the usually private and quiet Amish. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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