Whiskers of the Lion / P L Gaus - 3***

[Book Concierge]

Whiskers Of the Lion – P L Gaus
3***

This is book number nine in the Amish-Country Mystery series, but the first one I’ve read.

It was an interesting mystery with a great cast of (I presume) regular characters: Sheriff Bruce Robertson, his wife (and medical examiner) Melissa Taggert, deputy (and college professor) Mike Branden, and detective Pat Lance.

New deputy Stan Armbruster is checking a farm from which a couple has gone missing when he spots Howie Dent’s distinctive yellow VW bug. What he finds in the farmhouse is horrifying evidence of a brutal murder. But where is Fannie Helmuth, the young Amish woman who can identify the notorious drug kingpin Teresa Molina?

There were a lot of twists and turns, and I got the distinct impression that this drug cartel business is a continuing theme in the series. Gaus doesn’t overly explain things that regular readers of the series would obviously know, so I felt a little lost at time, but I don’t fault him for that.

Readers who might assume that “Amish” means a cozy mystery will be wrong. This is a hard-hitting crime novel, that happens to be set amid the Amish communities of Ohio. I had never read any of his books before, and probably got this at one of the “mystery conventions” I used to attend, where we would almost always get a bag full of books provided by publishers. Given my experience with this book, I would recommend reading the series in order.


LINK to my full review