As he goes about his milking chores on a cold October morning, Bishop Leon Shetler daydreams of escaping the Ohio winter and taking a bus to the Pinecraft Amish community in Florida for a vacation. His reverie is suddenly interrupted when young Crist Burkholder enters the barn, head down, hat in hand, to make a confession. "I just killed Glenn Spiegle."
"An Amish murderer?" Sheriff Robertson asks when he arrives on the scene. "Who will believe that?" But Burkholder is adamant about his guilt, fueled by the passion of his love for Vesta Miller, the young woman both he and Spiegle so desperately wanted to marry.
No sooner does the sheriff start his investigation than he learns of two more murders in the Pinecraft community, and a startling connection is made. There's no way around it - Professor Mike Branden will have to put his research trip on hold and, along with detective Ricky Niell, travel south to investigate. There they discover the disturbing truth about Spiegle's conversion to the Amish faith and the reason for the long-smoldering hatred that has reached into the secluded pastoral valleys of Holmes County.
In Harmless as Doves, P. L. Gaus takes the action to Florida in one of the most exciting mysteries in this series. This is Gaus at his best.
- ISBN10 0452297869
- ISBN13 9780452297869
- Publish Date 26 June 2012 (first published 22 May 2011)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 29 June 2021
- Publish Country IN
- Publisher Penguin Putnam Inc
- Imprint Plume
- Format Paperback (UK Trade)
- Pages 224
- Language English