Pray for Silence

April 12, 2010
In this overwrought thriller from Castillo, her second after Sworn to Silence
, someone slaughters all seven members of the Amish Plank family at their home in Painters Mill, Ohio. The bodies of the two teenage daughters show signs of torture. At first, it appears the father, Amos, killed his wife and five children, then shot himself. When clues point to a killer outside the family, Kate Burkholder, the local police chief who left the Amish community decades before, zeroes in on 15-year-old Mary, who may have flirted with the idea of living in the “English” world. Lending a hand is Kate’s on-again/off-again boyfriend, John Tomasetti, an agent suspended from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and Identification for failing a recent drug test in the wake of his own family’s murder about two years earlier. Castillo excels at detailing gory crime scenes, but she leaves Kate and John as little more than cookies cut from the same “troubled cop” mold. Author tour.

August 30, 2010
The horrific murder of an Amish family rocks the small town of Painters Mill, Ohio, in Castillo’s second thriller featuring Chief of Police Kate Burkholder. A lapsed member of the community herself, Burkholder confronts the life she abandoned many years ago—and its very dark secrets. Castillo builds a fascinating story that delves into a little known universe and populates it with authentic situations and characters. Kathleen McInerney does an excellent job of portraying this diverse cast, especially the Amish, who she instills with a shy, quiet dignity, and she handles the Pennsylvania Dutch language with the ease of a native. Although the brutality in the story can be quite disturbing in places, McInerney’s grounded reading keeps it from feeling gratuitous. A compelling listen, well-written and expertly narrated. A Minotaur hardcover (Reviews, Apr. 12).