Fallen: A Novel of Suspense (Kate Burkholder, #13)

by Linda Castillo

When a young woman is found murdered in a Painters Mill motel, Chief of Police Kate Burkholder is shocked to discover she once knew the victim. Rachael Schwartz was a charming but troubled Amish girl who left the fold years ago and fled Painters Mill. Why was she back in town? And who would kill her so brutally?

Kate remembers Rachael as the only girl who was as bad at being Amish as Kate was-and those parallels dog her. But the more Kate learns about Rachael's life, the more she's convinced that her dubious reputation was deserved. As a child, Rachael was a rowdy rulebreaker whose decision to leave devastated her parents and best friend. As an adult, she was charismatic and beautiful, a rabble-rouser with a keen eye for opportunity no matter who got in her way. Her no-holds-barred lifestyle earned her a lot of love and enemies aplenty-both English and Amish.
As the case heats to a fever pitch and long-buried secrets resurface, a killer haunts Painters Mill. Someone doesn't want Rachael's past-or the mysteries she took with her to the grave-coming to light. As Kate digs deeper, violence strikes again-this time hitting close to home. Will Kate uncover the truth and bring a murderer to justice? Or will a killer bent on protecting a terrible past, stop her once and for all-and let the fallen be forgotten?

• ISBN10: 125014292X
• ISBN13: 9781250142924
• Publish Date: 6 July 2021
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Out of Print: 6 August 2024
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: St Martin's Press
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 320
• Language: English

Reviews

[annieb123]

Originally posted on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

Fallen is the 13th Kate Burkholder procedural mystery by Linda Castillo. Released 6th July 2021 by Macmillan on their Minotaur imprint, it's 320 pages and is available in hardcover, paperback, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.

This is a very well written murder mystery and although it's number 13 in the series, it works well as a standalone. I do recommend reading the previous books, they're all solid; well plotted and full of believable characters and inter-agency police stories. There are some minor spoilers as backstory in this book which have some bearing on earlier books, but they're relatively minor.

The sense of place is palpable. There are a number of Amish characters (the small town where Chief of Police Kate Burkholder works is a rural agricultural area inhabited by a number of Amish families). The author's descriptions are nuanced and believable. I found some of the dialogue jarring because it's liberally sprinkled with Pennsylvania Dutch, but the author is adept at translating, and most of it is understandable from context. I enjoyed the development of the investigation and Chief Burkholder and her team's sense of cooperation and their tenacity in uncovering what happened more than a decade ago.

The characters are impressively nuanced. It takes a quite a lot of technical expertise to write characters who do bad things but aren't necessarily bad people and subtlety to allow readers to arrive at their own conclusions. I never felt much of a connection with the first victim, but the mystery works well and it was an engaging read. There was one fairly major plot hole (which could have been excised without losing much) which wasn't resolved, but other than that, the denouement and resolution were well written and satisfying.

Four stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.