Rage: A Kate Burkholder Novel

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.)