Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to preview this ARC of Shamed by Linda Castillo.

A quiet Amish village is completely shocked when an older beloved woman turns up brutally murdered, and her special needs granddaughter goes missing. How does such a thing happen to a community that believes in harmony and peace.

This is a piece in a long series about detective Kate Burkholder, an ex-member of the Amish community who speaks the language and has an "in" with it's residents. Through her work and the work of the team, they unfold the sordid tale of this poor old woman and her innocent young granddaughter.

I'm sorry to say this with all the great reviews of this series, but, yawn. It was surprisingly a bit cheesy and the dialogue grated on me. Like it was trying to appease to the audience that loves chick-lit AND hardcore thrillers. It just wasn't for me.

Shamed is a convoluted mystery. Why would anyone murder an old Amish grandmother and take her special needs grandchild? Sheriff Kate Burkholder uncovers some dark long held secrets in her Amish community.

As with all of Linda's books, I was hooked by the first page and it kept me on the edge of my seat until the last sentence of the last page. The plot is so well developed that I could envision all of the lush Amish landscapes, as well as the muddy farms.

This book starts out with an Amish Grandma brutally stabbed to death in an abandoned house. Her granddaughter is then kidnapped and she is only
seven years old. Kate Burkholder and Tomasetti, her boyfriend, are using their detective skills and are on the hunt to find her. Kate Burkholder is the Chief of Police. There are many clues and secrets and lies. While they are investigating more people seem to disappear. After an attempt on her own life, unearths a haunting and tragic secret that changes everything. She thought she knew about the family for whom she is fighting, the Amish community, as a whole, and every thing she thought she knew about herself. Will she reach the girl in time to save her life.

This is the 11th book in the Kate Burkholder series. I love in Ohio and I have visited this Amish town many times. It is located in Painter's Mill, Ohio along the Ohio River in Southern, Ohio. The author does a great job describing this town. It brings back memories of the times I visited there. It is so great to read about a setting that you can relate too.

I just love this series! The best part of reading this series is that they can be read as stand alones. They are quite addicting so once you read one, you will want to read them all. I would start on the first book to get to know the characters.

It was a powerful, heart pounding, nonstop adrenaline rush. I love it when a book does that to me.

Get ready for a thriller that has lots of action, some violence, and lots of surprises. This is one book that will keep you up late in the night, as you quickly turn the pages. Its a top notch edge of your seat mystery that will keep you guessing until the end.

I think that these characters are all so well done. I can really connect with them. I loved Kate and her drive to find the truth. She is very determined and I love her character. I also love Tomasetti and their relationship. I love the writing style.

It is sadly to say that I am all caught up and up to date in this series and hope to get her next book very soon and I cant wait to read it. This is my all time favorite series and they never disappoint.

I want to thank Netgalley, Minotaur Books, and the author for the copy of this book in exchange for a honest review.

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It’s really not a secret that I’m a huge fan of Linda Castillo’s Kate Burkholder series. And with its 11th installment, Castillo shows how series can be both long-lasting and feel fresh and exciting.

This isn’t the “typical” Kate Burkholder book in that instead of going into the mystery blind, we get glimpses of part of the “why” and “what” early on, while Kate works to piece together the rest of the picture throughout the book. And the suspense is kept incredibly high throughout, as Kate once again has to fight and scrape for every tidbit of information.

But first, let me back up: The story begins with two young girls and their grandmother collecting walnuts. Then, suddenly someone shows up, murders the grandmother in cold blood and takes the 7–year-old girl. As Kate and her team look for little Elsie, they discover that there is much more to the story than a simple abduction.

It really was a thrilling ride throughout Ohio’s Amish community, as Kate works the case, which is emotional and complex. There’s some gray areas that really become apparent here, and those gray areas are left pretty open, which means the reader gets to fill in the blanks themselves. There’s some questions that aren’t really answered in the end, and it feels realistic, since the situation is so sensitive and ambiguous.

I also continue to like the character development with Kate and he team throughout the book as they continue to mesh together and get used to their new roles (Mona is an officer now). I would like to see more with her and Tomasetti, but hopefully there will be more of that in the next book, since there has been so much in the previous installments.

This book continues the great legacy of this series, and fans will be more than satisfied with how it keeps the story alive.

Loved this 11th book in Linda Castillo's "Kate Burkholder" series!
One of my all-time favourite series!
An Amish grandmother is murdered and her seven year old granddaughter is abducted. Chief of Police Kate Burkholder races against the clock to find the missing girl. The family is co-operative but Kate quickly learns they are keeping secrets.
Many plot twists reveal the dark side of Amish life.
A Captivating Read!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press/Minotaur Books for an arc of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

With “Shamed” Linda Castillo continues her outstanding series set in the small town of Painter’s Mill, Ohio - an area with a large Amish population. Kate Burkholder, the chief of police, was formerly Amish and this provides her with a deep understanding of their beliefs and practices, along with the ability to communicate with them in their own language. When clues seem to point towards members of that community, she can’t comprehend how they could be involved in a young special needs girl’s disappearance and the brutal murder of her grandmother. Additional murders occur in the Amish community and Kate and other law enforcement officers are in a race against time to find the little girl and bring the murderer to justice.

Castillo always writes suspenseful and expertly paced books and this series continues to expand my knowledge of Amish life. With our culture so focused on the use of technology and modern conveniences it’s interesting and enlightening to contemplate a culture that lives (happily!) without automobiles, electricity (except for the use of generators,) smart phones, internet access, and all the other things we think are essential in our lives. I missed reading more about her relationship with her boyfriend John Tomasetti, an agent with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, but I’m confident there will be more to come for the two of them. Can be read as a stand-alone, but once you read one, you’ll be hooked!

My review was posted on Goodreads on 7/21/19.

Linda Castillo does not disappoint in this eleventh installment to the Kate Burkholder series. A bit heavier and more disturbing than her previous books, the author takes Kate and the police force of Painters Mill down a dark and disturbing road with the murder of a grandmother and the abduction of a special needs child.

“Da Deivel has hurt Grossmammi” are the first words Kate can get out of terrified Anne Helmuth. Mary Yoder is dead and 7-year-old Elsie is missing. With little to go on and only a basic description, the police are left with very few leads. The locals have no idea who could be responsible, but when an innocent comment is made about Elsie being a gift, new ideas are forming and when you kick over the right rock, family secrets are revealed. Secrets lead up to the highest echelons of the tight-knit Amish community. With the pieces coming together, Kate does not like the picture which is forming and why Elsie, of all children, would be kidnapped. In a desperate need to have her child returned, Miriam Helmuth reveals the truth behind Elsie’s birth and what part both a mid-wife and Bishop Troyer had in a late-night visit to a remote farm.

As notes are being left with those who know more than they should, and bodies piling up, Kate is in a battle with time to have a child returned before any more damage can be done to the families involved and the community that protects them.

This book will grab you from the beginning. You may have the intention of reading a bit here and there, to savor what is being said, but you will not be able to let go until you reach the end and know the pain some have suffered and the dishonesty others will go to when they think they are doing what is best for a child.

I received this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review. While this was my first book from this author I will be looking for more. The normally peaceful Amish community is rocked by the savage murder of a grandmother, and the disappearance of her “special” granddaughter. Chief Kate Burkholder is up against the clock to find the missing girl. Further investigation uncovers secrets as well as suspicious deaths of other members of the normally peaceful community.

SHAMED
Linda Castillo
Minotaur Books
ISBN 978-1-250-14286-3
Hardcover
Mystery

SHAMED will hold a special place in my heart and mind going forward. We will get to the reason why in a bit. There is otherwise still much to love in this latest installment of Linda Castillo’s long-running (over a decade! When did that happen?) Kate Burkholder series. Castillo moves the Painters Mill, Ohio police chief just a bit outside of her comfort zone as she races to solve a tantalizing mystery which has its roots in the past and holds the life of an innocent child in the balance. The result is a story with a clock that ticks so loudly one can hear nothing else from the first page to the last.

Things get moving rather quickly in SHAMED as the result of a murder and a kidnapping. The murder victim is Mary Yoder, an Amish woman who is shepherding two of her granddaughters through the act of harvesting walnuts on an abandoned farm. The trio is there for only a short time, however, before Mary is murdered in a brutal attack and seven-year-old Elsie, the elder of the two girls, is abducted. Burkholder, who was raised in the Amish way but who left the community, is able to get the story of what happened from the other girl, but none of it makes sense. Mary had no enemies that anyone knew of. Still, Burkholder takes the sense that Elsie’s parents, who are highly respected in the Amish community, are concealing something important about their missing daughter. Burkholder initiates some old fashioned detective work with modern data gathering and discovers that a number of things involving Elsie and her family don’t add up. Answers lead to more questions, which in turn lead Burkholder to the local bishop --- someone who had been Burkholder’s nemesis as a young woman --- and then from Holmes County in northeastern Ohio to Scioto County in the southern part of the state, where the Amish population is more thinly distributed. I particularly enjoyed the portions of SHAMED that take place there, given that I worked professionally in the area for several years. Castillo’s descriptions of the primary and secondary roads, as well as the tiny hamlets and townships that pepper the area, are dead-on accurate and brought back memories, both good and otherwise, of the local geography. Burkholder, for her part, finds the answers to most of the questions that she is looking for but not the main one, that being the location and the fate of Elsie. One can hear the clock ticking throughout SHAMED --- Castillo helpfully notes how long the girl has been missing at the commencement of each chapter --- and the suspense builds even as Burkholder gets closer, even as the clever instigator goes to ground. He is not, however, the only one who is blameless, and it will take Burkholder’s return to Holmes County for all to be properly revealed.

I would not have expected for anyone to successfully continue to mine a relatively small rural area for so many interesting and intriguing stories for so long, but Castillo has done the job and then some. I have the sense that she has any number of stories left to tell and on the strength of SHAMED and what has gone before I want to read every one of them. Recommended.

Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
© Copyright 2019, The Book Report, Inc. All rights reserved.

⭐️ ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This may be one of the best Kate Burkholder novels yet. As with all Castillo novels, full of gritty, viciousness and evil. All set in the Amish community. Secrets always find a way of getting out. And this time involved the Bishop and elders amongst the Amish. And a terrified little girl. Absolutely outstanding. A must read!
*thank you NetGalley

This eleventh book in the Kate Burkholder series by Linda Castillo did not disappoint me at all! In the prologue, a grandmother and her two young granddaughters go on an outing to a neighboring farm that is abandoned. Playing around and picking walnuts, the three are content and show a picture of a loving Amish family. Then, the grandmother is brutally murdered and the scene is very graphically described. She screams for her young granddaughters to run, but only one gets away. When police chief Kate Burkholder arrives at the horrible scene, even she is sickened by the horrific crime, but even more so when she discovers that a young girl has been abducted and the clock is ticking. She calls in her lover Tomasetti who is an FBI agent. This book is a suspense novel and a police procedural, but it is unique in that it gives the reader a view of life among the Amish. It was interesting to discover that the Amish are no different than others in the “English” world in that they keep secrets, even when their revelation could mean saving a life. I always look forward to the new LInda Castillo books each year and thoroughly enjoyed this one, although I think the description of the murder scenes was more graphic than I remember in the past. Although this is book eleven in the series, any reader can jump right into this one and read and understand what is happening because the author does a fantastic job of character development in each book. Readers of suspense and police procedurals will definitely enjoy this new Kate Burkholder novel!

I've always been fascinated by the Amish - people so different from anyone I've ever known. This book gives a good sense of the Amish community while tackling a complex mystery.

The characters are believable and sympathetic. The descriptions are vivid - excellent! The mystery winds around at break-neck speed dropping hints then taking them away. This is a true page-turner. I literally could not put it down - read in one sitting.

Better believe I'll be watching for more books by Linda Castillo!

An Amish grandmother, Mary Yoder, is brutally killed and one of her granddaughters is kidnapped in Shamed, an Amish police procedural.

Kate Burkholder is the former Amish and current police chief in small town, Painters Mill Ohio. Her first concern is locating special needs Elsie, age seven. The viciousness of her grandmother’s murder doesn’t bode well for her safety. The only witness is her traumatized 5-year-old sister. Surprisingly, she identifies the killer as Amish.

It is innovative to set a police procedural in a small Amish town. However, the differences in culture are not emphasized. In fact, the opposite is true. The author frequently states how similar the Amish are to the English. There are liars and murderers among them too.

The rest of the book is a formulaic small town police procedural. Kate needs help from other jurisdictions, including her boyfriend, John Tomasetti of the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigations. She also has to resist the mayor’s politically motivated suggestions to solve the crimes quickly before the tourists start cancelling their visits to Painters Mill.

My biggest problem with Shamed is that there isn’t any real interaction between the characters. Kate and John barely speak to each other through most of the book. Also, Kate’s backstory of why she left the Amish isn’t fleshed out. None of the characters seem genuine. The mystery was also easy to figure out. So for those reasons, this book receives only 3 stars from me.

Thanks to Minotaur Books and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

An Amish grandmother is murdered. Her seven year-old-granddaughter is missing. Chief of Police Kate Burkholder is investigating, while desperately racing against the clock to find the missing child. And, the only witness to the crime is a five-year-old girl who says the devil took her sister.

Kate Burkholder is in charge of the police force in Painters Mill, Ohio, a community that includes an Amish population. Kate is well-suited for her job, since she was raised Amish until she left the community at the age of 18, and she understands the Amish traditions and way of life.

Shamed, the latest book in the Kate Burkholder series by Linda Castillo, is another winner. It is an excellent police procedural with a sympathetic, strong, and intelligent protagonist. The characters are varied and interesting, the plot is well-drawn, and since the story takes place over a 5 day period, it is fast-paced and intense.

Even though Shamed is part of a series, it can easily be read as a stand-alone. Meanwhile, I found it difficult to set aside. The storyline and the characters kept pulling me back to read “just one more chapter”. Dinner was late and the laundry piled up, but I thoroughly enjoyed Shamed. Thank you, Ms Castillo, for giving me such a good book to read on a hot summer afternoon.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a copy of this book for review.

One of the best things about this series is that it's easy to pick up any book, enough back story is provided in each. This book was gripping, telling the story of a murder of an Amish grandmother and the kidnapping of a young girl. Family secrets have to be revealed before the child can be found. The story twists and turns, keeping you guessing throughout. Plus I enjoyed learning more about the Amish throughout.

I'd read an earlier book in the series and enjoyed that one, though it is different than what I am typically drawn to. I finished this one in two days, a quick read for me.

I had no idea where Shamed by Linda Castillo was going to go after reading the description of the book. No matter the cultural or religious background, it read as a grandmother’s worst nightmare; a kidnapped granddaughter. At least it would be for me. As Kate races against the clock to find and save this child, the story becomes more complex and dark.

The eleventh Kate Burkholder novel looks at the human element of the Amish community that believes in God’s will. It seems that the leaders can past judgement within the community; labeling it as God’s will but is it really? “The best way to escape evil is to pursue good.” One has to ask, but is it right? Like Kate I question their ability to always be right. The blurring of right and wrong, future actions that are triggered, and the questions of whether truth was found makes this a thinking person’s book. No easy answers even as the past is revealed along with the present guilty party being caught. Like I said, a thought provoking plot for Kate and the reader too.

Kidnapping investigations are a race against the clock. Statistics show that the longer it takes to find the missing person the less likely the outcome will be favorable. Shamed starts off with a brutal slaying of a grandmother while her two granddaughters are outside gathering walnuts, and then the clock starts ticking as one of the children is snatched.

This is my first read in the Kate Burkholder series (this is book # 11). I quickly found that while reading the series in order would potentially lend me a depth of understanding and insight into Kate and some other characters, it is not requisite for reading and enjoying the story. Linda Castillo does a magnificent job at creating characters with depth and an intimacy that leaves you feeling connected with them and the struggles/adventures they encounter throughout the story. She also writes a mean police procedural. Her writing is crisp, plot lines interesting, and twists are interwoven expertly throughout the story.

Very entertaining read, and a great introduction to Linda Castillo and her character Kate.

9.0 stars out of 10.0

Thanks to the great folks at St. Martin's Press, Minotaur Books, and Macmillan Publishing for a free electronic copy of the book in exchange for my thoughts and review.

#Shamed #NetGalley

Great read. The author wrote a story that was interesting and moved at a pace that kept me engaged. The characters were easy to invest in.

This book is one of the better ones in awhile in this series. The whole sneaking around with John and Kate needs to end but in this book it wasn't mentioned as much. The mystery part of this book was really interesting. I have to say the Amish in this book were more forth coming then in previously book though again they did keep secrets. I do believe everyone keeps secrets no matter what when it comes to a murder investigation. This book gives me hope for better stories in this series then in the last few books.


*I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving a review.*