The Dead Will Tell: A Kate Burkholder Novel

A Boston Globe Best Book of 2014

Everyone in Painters Mill knows the abandoned Hochstetler farm is haunted. But only a handful of the residents remember the terrible secrets lost in the muted/hushed whispers of time―and now death is stalking them, seemingly from the grave.

On a late-night shift, Chief of Police Kate Burkholder is called to the scene of an apparent suicide―an old man found hanging from the rafters in his dilapidated barn. But evidence quickly points to murder and Kate finds herself chasing a singularly difficult and elusive trail of evidence that somehow points back to the tragedy of that long ago incident. Meanwhile, Kate has moved in with state agent John Tomasetti and for the first time in so long, they're both happy; a bliss quickly shattered when one of the men responsible for the murders of Tomasetti's family four years ago is found not guilty, and walks away a free man. Will Tomasetti be pulled back to his own haunted past?

When a second man is found dead―also seemingly by his own hand―Kate discovers a link in the case that sends the investigation in a direction no one could imagine and revealing the horrifying truth of what really happened that terrible night thirty-five years ago, when an Amish father and his four children perished―and his young wife disappeared without a trace. And, as Kate knows―the past never truly dies... in The Dead Will Tell by Linda Castillo

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Sometimes, setting mirrors action in crime fiction, but other times, the beauty or tranquility of a landscape serves to heighten the horror of the crimes that unfold against it. Such is certainly the case in Castillo's Kate Burkholder series, starring the police chief of Painters Mill, Ohio, seemingly a near-bucolic community set in the midst of Amish country. In this sixth installment, Kate must connect the dots linking a horrendous 1975 robbery-gone-wrong (reminiscent of In Cold Blood)--an Amish man was killed, four of his children died in a fire, and his wife disappeared--and a string of 2014 murders suggesting that the victims may have been involved in the decades-old crime. But why has the revenge-fueled killer waited so long to begin extracting his or her pounds of flesh? Castillo effectively combines an airtight plot with a revealingly complex look at what can happen when a fissure develops along the fault line separating an insular community from the secular world. As always, the introspective but determined Kate straddles both worlds with remarkable dexterity. Castillo shows again why the phrase "gritty Amish mystery" is no oxymoron. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The Kate Burkholder series has steadily grown in popularity, turning up recently on the New York Times best-seller list. An aggressive marketing campaign, combining national trade exposure as well as library and social media, will help ensure that it stays there. --Bill Ott