Last week I published a blog post on Camp Nanowrimo, which is going on right now. All the best to my writerly friends who are participating in this worldwide event. Writing can be lonely, difficult business, and those who are doing is deserve our support.
As far as my Nano goes, I just crossed 50K, so have officially met my challenge, but will continue until I am finished the first draft of Posed for Death.
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme. Read the rules and more teasers at The Purple Booker. Anyone can play along.
Fallen, by Linda Castillo is book #13 in the Kate Burkholder series. I always enjoy these mysteries with a little taste of Amish country, with tidbits about their culture and phrases of Pennsylvania Dutch sprinkled throughout. Kate does a good job of tracking down the killers with her special combination of brains, compassion, and respect for the community that she chose not to be a part of, instead pursuing a career in law enforcement. Her significant other, John Tomasetti work well together. I enjoy a book where the woman and the man are on equal footing and don’t have a lot of conflict or competitiveness over cases. (Though, of course, I also enjoy books where there is some conflict between the couple as well. Since all couples have conflict of some kind.)
I’m no stranger to violence of the unspeakable things human beings are capable of doing to each other.
Linda Castillo, Fallen
When a young woman is found murdered in a Painters Mill motel, Chief of Police Kate Burkholder is shocked to discover she once knew the victim. Rachael Schwartz was a charming but troubled Amish girl who left the fold years ago and fled Painters Mill. Why was she back in town? And who would kill her so brutally?
Kate remembers Rachael as the only girl who was as bad at being Amish as Kate was—and those parallels dog her. But the more Kate learns about Rachael’s life, the more she’s convinced that her dubious reputation was deserved. As a child, Rachael was a rowdy rulebreaker whose decision to leave devastated her parents and best friend. As an adult, she was charismatic and beautiful, a rabble-rouser with a keen eye for opportunity no matter who got in her way. Her no-holds-barred lifestyle earned her a lot of love and enemies aplenty—both English and Amish.
As the case heats to a fever pitch and long-buried secrets resurface, a killer haunts Painters Mill. Someone doesn’t want Rachael’s past—or the mysteries she took with her to the grave—coming to light. As Kate digs deeper, violence strikes again, this time hitting close to home. Will Kate uncover the truth and bring a murderer to justice? Or will a killer bent on protecting a terrible past stop her once and for all—and let the fallen be forgotten?
