MADreads

“A gun-toting, cursing, former Amish female chief of police. I’ll be damned.”

August 27th, 2009 Katharine - Sequoya

So says agent John Tomasetti whose been brought in to help solve the serial killer murders plaguing sleepy Painters Mill, Ohio.  If you can make it through the first three pages (a description of the last torturous moments of a young victim) then you are in for a thrilling treat.  Fans of Tess Gerritsen or Patricia Cornwell will love Linda Castillo’s new novel Sworn to Silence that introduces us to Police Chief Kate Burkholder.

Burkholder’s rookie cop TJ Banks discovers a body one blustery winter evening on a routine cow roundup (the normal type of Painters Mill police work).  His discovery sets off a chain of events for the town that will end with two other women dead and a unraveling of Burkholder’s life.  Burkholder has a suspicion of who the killer is but to pursue the suspect she’ll have to uncover her own past.

Castillo does a great job of parceling out the back story of Burkholder’s secret life and weaving it into the present investigation.  Her inclusion of Amish cultural references and description of the community also really added to the story and made Burkholder’s character believable and emotional, not just some hard nosed cop with a murder to solve.

So where does Tomasetti fit into all of this story?  He’s a rogue cop who’s lost his family to violence and become lost in booze and drugs.  He is sent to Painters Mill by his superiors as a last ditch effort to get him to mess up one more time, but Burkholder ends up using his killer profiling experience to her advantage to figure whose responsible for the murders.  Does she end up using Tomasetti in other ways?  You’ll have to read it to find out. According to the book blurb Castillo is working on the next installment of Kate’s police career and that makes this another must read female cop series on my list.

Entry Filed under: Mystery, Thriller