Murder Most Amish

Description for MURDER MOST AMISH by P L Gaus:

BLOOD OF THE PRODIGAL:

WHEN AN AMISH BOY IS KIDNAPPED, CAN THREE MEN BRIDGE THE DIVIDE BETWEEN TWO PEOPLES?

The Amish, or "plain people," and English, or "vain ones," share a home county in the pastoral hills of Ohio. As summer approaches, boyhood friends and lifelong residents Pastor Caleb Troyer and Professor Michael Branden anticipate a season of fishing for bass, until a ten-year-old boy disappears from the home of the Amish bishop who had exiled the boy's father a decade earlier.

"Say little. Listen a lot" are Troyer and Branden's simple watchwords as they begin, at the behest of Bishop Eli Miller, to work the case. Following the bishop's mysterious strictures, the pair is plunged into the traditionally closed Amish society whose followers, innately suspicious of English ways, have been suddenly made vulnerable to the dangers of the world. When the man suspected of seizing the boy turns up dead, Sheriff Bruce Robertson takes up the investigation -- only to uncover truths that many, especially the bishop, would prefer to leave undisturbed.

Deeply atmospheric and morally complex, BLOOD OF THE PRODICAL is the first in a riveting series that explores a fascinating culture of a people set purposely apart from mainstream America.

BROKEN ENGLISH:

The peaceful town of Millersburg, Ohio, in the heart of Ohio's Amish country, is rocked by the vicious murder of one of its citizens at the hands of an itinerant ex-convict. When a local reporter covering the story ends up dead as well, with the convict already behind bars, suspicion falls on David Hawkins, father of the first victim. But Hawkins is nowhere to be found, not even among the protective Amish colony that had taken him in as one of its own regardless of his shadowy past.

Following on the critical and popular success of his first book, mystery writer P. L. Gaus again brings us the moral and legal conundrum of Professor Michael Branden, Sheriff Bruce Robertson, and Pastor Cal Troyer as they set out to uncover the truth that seems so elusive in their otherwise quiet corner of the world.

Along the way, Gaus paints a unique portrait of the relationship between the Amish and the "English" cultures as seen from the inside. Against the backdrop, Broken English is a tale of honor, deception, and revenge, where circumstances and the search for justice test the mettle of the closest of friends and reveal the desperate measures of the strongest of foes.

CLOUDS WITHOUT RAIN

In the wooded Amish hill country, a professor at a small college, a local pastor, and the county sheriff are the only ones among the mainstream, or "English," who possess the instincts and skills to work the cases that impact all county residents, no matter their code of conduct or religious creed.

A fatal accident involving and Amish buggy and an eighteen-wheeler sets Professor Michael Branden on a quest to uncover the links between the crash and a spate of disturbing events.