An Evil Heart (Kate Burkholder)

by Linda Castillo

[annieb123]

Originally posted on my blog Nonstop Reader.

An Evil Heart is the 15th Kate Burkholder procedural thriller by Linda Castillo. Released 11th July 2023 by Macmillan on their St. Martin's Press 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.

This is a very well written murder mystery and although it's number 15 in the series, it works well as a standalone. All the background character and setting information is provided in the book itself. There is an ongoing, multi-book, partnership between formerly-Amish small-town police chief Kate and her significant other, a retired cop as well as an ensemble cast of colleagues. I do recommend reading the previous books, they're all solid; but it's not necessary to understand what's going on here. The series is well plotted and full of believable characters and inter-agency police stories. Refreshingly, in this case, the interagency interactions are generally cooperative and professional.

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 whose population is roughly 1/3 Amish). 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.

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 as well as the converse (bad people who are charming and well regarded). The denouement and resolution were well written and satisfying and although I had guessed the overall theme of the crimes and motivations underlying, there were some surprising twists at the end.

For sensitive readers, this book contains quite graphic descriptions of violence, body horror (a crossbow murder at the beginning), sexual assault (including non-consensual assault of a minor), trauma, and oppressive religious fundamentalism and closed societies. Language is "R" rated.

The unabridged audiobook has a run time of 9 hours and 25 minutes and is narrated capably and well by series narrator Kathleen McInerney. She has a warm and rich clear alto voice and does a good job delineating the widely varied accents of a range of characters of all ages and both sexes including elderly and young voices. Sound and production quality are high throughout the recording.

Four and a half stars. This series/author will likely already be on public library acquisitions lists and available from local libraries. It's a consistently high quality procedural series and would make a great choice for a long binge/buddy read. It would also be a good choice as a mystery book club selection; lots of content for good and enthusiastic discussion (modern sexism, religion, sexual assault in rural areas, women in positions of respect in those areas, etc).

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