GONE MISSING returns us to the out of the ordinary world of Kate Burkholder. She is former Amish and now Police Chief of Painters Mill. Her friend and lover, John Tomasetti calls her to help with a case of missing Amish girls. Their romance that they are at this point still keeping on the quiet is beginning to build and with their pasts pressing at them it feels very real. He called her to help because she understands the Amish and speaks Pennsylvania Dutch and because he wants to see her. Clearing up her duties and putting one of her men in charge, she drives to Cleveland to join him and his team of Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation better known as BCI and begins the work of finding the missing girls.

The team compiles other missing girls and one young boy and begins the investigation by contacting the parents and meeting with them. The Amish have a distrust for the English and especially police so there is a bit of reticence in talking to them but Kate with her understanding of the ways of the plain life and the language manages to get them to tell her things that seems to link the missing girls. The girls are all at the age where they are questioning staying Amish and are doing things like smoking, drinking, cursing, and dating that the Amish consider deep sins. It becomes even more urgent when one of the girls that Kate knows goes missing.

Living in Ohio, I know a lot of the places the author mentions, and found it exciting to hear about a part of my own world, and parts that I have only driven through. Ms. Castillo gives an informative insight to a group of people that many misunderstand which I have a new respect for the strength they must have to live their lives the way they do. There were a few times that I found it got a little thick with some of the procedural information but the dialogue is smooth, easily followed and despite the circumstances sometimes humorous. Something I personally do not like is a cliffhanger and the final few paragraphs of the last chapter and the epilogue felt that way to me. This by no means takes away from the exciting and thought provoking series that I hope continues for a number of years and would recommend to anyone who wants to read a different type of mystery.

Book Summary

Rumspringa is the time when Amish teens are allowed to experience life without the rules. It’s an exciting time of personal discovery and growth before committing to the church. But when a young teen disappears without a trace, the carefree fun comes to an abrupt and sinister end, and fear spreads through the community like a contagion.

A missing child is a nightmare to all parents, and never more so than in the Amish community, where family ties run deep. When the search for the presumed runaway turns up a dead body, the case quickly becomes a murder investigation. And chief of Police Kate Burkholder knows that in order to solve this case she will have to call upon everything she has to give not only as a cop, but as a woman whose own Amish roots run deep.

Kate and state agent, John Tomasetti, delve into the lives of the missing teen and discover links to cold cases that may go back years. But will Kate piece together all the parts of this sinister puzzle in time to save the missing teen and the Amish community from a devastating fate? Or will she find herself locked in a fight to the death with a merciless killer?