Pray for Silence: A Kate Burkholder Novel

One family. One horrific murder. An entire town under suspicion...

The Planks moved from Lancaster County Pennsylvania to the small Amish community of Painters Mill, hoping to resume the comforts of the Plain Life in Ohio. Less than one year later, the family of seven is found dead―slaughtered on their own farm.

"Shades of In Cold Blood... Another chilling thriller."―People magazine

Police Chief Kate Burkholder and her small force have few clues, no motive, and no suspect. Formerly Amish herself, Kate is no stranger to the secrets the Amish keep from their "English" neighbors―and each other. When the diary belonging to the rebellious teenager Mary Plank turns up, Kate is surprised to find not only a kindred spirit but a murder suspect: the charismatic stranger who stole Mary's heart.

"Violent and earthy, and completely impossible to put down."―BookPage

Then there's Mary's brother, Aaron. Shunned by his family and the rest of the Amish community, could he have returned to seek revenge? Now it's up to Kate to search for some dark truths about the Planks―and confront long-buried secrets of her own. As Kate's obsession with the case grows so does her resolve to bring the killer to justice―even if it means putting herself into the line of fire...

"Will appeal to fans of Karin Slaughter and Tami Hoag."―Library Journal

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

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. (June) Copyright ® Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.