Double Review: Sworn to Silence and Pray for Silence, Linda Castillo

I haven’t been blogging much lately.  I was in a terrible reading rut for a while and then PTO and Cheerleading really kicked in.  Fortunately, my rut seems to be over and my reading has really picked up.  These two books were the cure.  I am a huge fan of any type of Amish fiction and had the first book on my wish list ever since it came out.  As soon as I heard there was a second book, I got my hands on them both.  They are very enjoyable and easy reads.

Sworn to Silence  (Audio book narrated by Kathleen McInerney).  This is the first book in a crime series set in Painters Mill, a small town in Ohio with a large Amish population.  Kate Burkholder, is the chief of police in Painters Mill, but she grew up there as an Amish girl.  Sixteen years ago there were four murders in the area, and each of the victims was raped and found with a sequential roman numeral carved on the abdomen.  Now, Kate is faced with another murder with a similar carving.  But, she was sure that she had secretly killed the murderer after he had sexually assaulted her in her family’s home.  Now Kate has to solve this new murder and find out if she really did kill the man responsible when she was a teenager.

I listened to this book on audio.  I thought the narrator was great.  She was able to change her voice for each character, and there were a lot of them.  I liked that she brought a “just the facts ma’am” attitude to her voice while she was narrating, and I think it really added to the police investigation plot. 

The story was well written.  There were just enough twists and turns to keep me guessing.  I liked Kate.  She wasn’t perfect.  Her flaws kept her human, and even though I am not a woman cop, I could still identify with her.  The cast of characters was great.  Kate’s employee’s were each unique and played an important role in the story.  The suspects were interesting and I had a chance to wonder about each one’s innocence as they were interrogated.  I didn’t like John Tomasetti, a state police profiler, when he was first introduced.  But as the story played out, I came to enjoy the parts with him the most.  His interaction with Kate was great. 

If I had one concern with this novel, it was the language.  I know that cops and murderers can have foul mouths, and I have been known to say a bad word or two myself, so I don’t know why these words stood out so much for me.  I don’t usually read murder mysteries, so I don’t know if it is common for this genre.  But, I suspect that it had more to do with it being an audio version.  The words were said in anger and therefore given more emphasis, so I probably just noticed them more. I think they would have blended in more if I had been reading them.  Of course that one little issue didn’t change my opinion of the novel or the narration.  I give this book 5/5 stars and a huge thank you for pulling me out of a rut!

Pray for Silence.  Since I enjoyed the audio of the first book, I was hoping to listen to this one also.  The library only had the hardback copy, but I could still remember the different voices in my head as I was reading (the narrating was that good).   In this second book, we are back in Painters Mill with Chief Burkholder.  As the first pages unfold, 7 members of an Amish family are found murdered and tortured on their farm.  Kate and her team work just as hard trying to figure out this mystery, but with no survivors and so many secrets, they are struggling.  I was pleased that John was back, although he doesn’t seem to have as much of a role in this novel.  Eveything that I loved about the first bok holds true for this one.  Kate’s Amish background helps her get information from this normally closed community, even though she has been excommunicated and is currently under the “baan“.  I will say that I was able to figure out some of the ending about half way through, but not all of it.  And, I think that only happened because I was focused on the details more after just finishing the first book.  Ms. Castillo does refer back to information from the Sworn to Silence from time to time, so I am glad that I read them in order

It is hard to compare these two books since I listened to one and read the other.  I think I enjoyed the first one more, but I blew through the second one in just three days.  Also, the use of language didn’t stand out as much in Pray for Silence.  I’m not sure if she didn’t use as much, or if it all blended in like I thought it would.    Either way this gets 5/5 stars too.  I can’t wait for her next book.

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