(WPF) Shamed, by Linda Castillo (3 stars)

[KateNZ]

I like the Kate Burkholder stories and I particularly like listening to them on audio - Kathleen McInerney is an excellent narrator. I can't read too many in a row because they get a bit formulaic, and I also find it increasingly harder to suspend disbelief about how many awful murders are taking place in a small and generally peaceful Amish community where we are repeatedly told the most exciting thing that the police get to do is ticket people for not displaying slow moving vehicle signs, or shift straying stock... But I've had a long break, so it's nice to be able to revisit the town of Painters Mill and meet some old friends.

This story was typically solid - a grandmother is brutally murdered and her seven year old granddaughter is abducted. So the clock is ticking to find the little girl - literally: the chapter headings are counting the time since she went missing. It quickly becomes obvious that there are a bunch of secrets leading up to the episode, and that finding the girl depends on unravelling those secrets. Enter Kate and Tomasetti. Whose relationship is still apparently a secret from everyone. (In that small a community? more suspension of disbelief required, lol).

While the story is good, some aspects of the case really should be more obvious to an experienced detective, IMO, and this has dropped my rating - in particular, Kate seems to spend a lot of time mulling over things that are reasonably obvious (this is a feature of some of the earlier books as well). Castillo does tell some aspects of the story through others' eyes, so Kate obviously can't know those things, but there are enough clues elsewhere that she should be able to work a few things out a whole load earlier than she does. So the narrative about how she gets there tends to feel like padding of the story, rather than genuine plot advancement. I'd also have thought that she'd be a lot more open with her law enforcement colleagues at times than she is- even if she's presenting it as hypothesis. Have I mentioned suspension of disbelief?

The most interesting aspect of this story is the moral dilemma at the heart of it. I thought that was well explored, and engages the reader's sympathy for most of the characters involved, even if not agreement for what they do - we can see their motivations clearly. And the exploration of what it means to be Amish, and the use of Deitsch continues to be a lovely and warm point of difference for these stories.

[Susan]

Nice review. Agree that suspension of belief is a must for these village-based cozy mysteries. But they can sometimes be just what I need at the moment!