Holmes County, about 50 minutes west of Canton, is home to one of the largest Amish settlements in the country. It is also the setting of an award-winning mystery series: the Kate Burkholder series by Linda Castillo.
The saga follows Kate Burkholder, police chief of the fictional town of Painters Mill, who grew up Amish but left the faith as an adult.
In the latest book in the series, “The Burning,” Burkholder's investigation into a shocking murder takes her deep into a dark and little-known chapter of Amish history.
“I think [for] every author who is writing a long-running series, you really want to be able to keep the books fresh, and that means sometimes taking a new direction or exploring different avenues with the book," Castillo said in a recent interview with Anna Huntsman, Ideastream Public Media’s Akron/Canton reporter.
“In this book, I really wanted to delve into the culture of the Anabaptists … the Amish, Hutterites and Mennonites,” Castillo said.
Castillo has spent much time in Northeast Ohio for research, particularly in Holmes, Wayne and Tuscarawas counties, she said.
At an event at the Dover Public Library for one of her previous book tours, Castillo was introduced to a curator for the Amish and Mennonite Heritage Center in Berlin, Ohio, near Millersburg, who took her for a tour there.
“It was just such an amazing thing to see the mural, the round mural that's there. And he sort of took me through Anabaptist history,” Castillo said. “It was just absolutely fascinating and a little odd too, because I think most people don't know, you know, how old this culture is and how much, you know, they went through just to be able to worship freely.”
Northeast Ohio librarians have shown her around the region, including taking her to dinner with an Amish family where Castillo got to drive a buggy, she recalled. And some Amish readers have even offered to help her with her research.
Castillo was born in Darke County and now resides in Texas. She was inspired to set a mystery series among Ohio’s Amish during a trip to Fredericktown to visit relatives about 15 years ago, she said.
“We're saying our goodbyes, and I'm standing in the yard and look over - I hear the clip clop of shod hooves, and there was an Amish buggy coming down the road,” Castilo said. That was the moment that I realized that if I were to take this high concept mystery thriller that I had been working on for several months at that point and set it among the Amish and really be able to give readers a glimpse into the Amish culture, that it would be something special.”
That book, "Sworn to Silence," was eventually published in 2009.
Castillo is currently at work on the 17th book in the series, which she revealed on “The Sound of Ideas” will be titled, “Rage.”
“The Burning” is out now and can be found in bookstores and online retailers.
Guest:
-Anna Huntsman, Reporter, Ideastream Public Media
-Linda Castillo, Author, "The Burning"
