Down a Dark Road (Kate Burkholder #9) by Linda Castillo

It was a pleasure to return to this series in this 9th installment as I have read and enjoyed the previous titles that feature Chief Kate Burkholder of the Painters Mill Police. Formerly Amish, Kate is in a unique position to deal with crimes in her Ohio town as it is populated by Amish.

Joseph King, convicted of murdering his wife a year earlier, escapes from the custody of the Mansfield Correctional Institution, a maximum security state prison about 100 miles from Painters Mill. When she's notified of Joseph's breach of security, Kate doesn't really believe that he will come to Painters Mill even though his children still live there with relatives. The news about Joseph brings back a lot of Kate's childhood memories as they were close as children and she just can't believe how he had changed into a drug abusing, alcoholic, abusive criminal. Turns out she may be the only one who still has any faith left in him as he tells Kate that he did not kill his wife. She can't leave it alone and this novel deals with Kate's personal mission to find out the truth.

Not really a good choice to read as a standalone, this book furthers our knowledge of Kate's personal history as a young girl growing up Amish. This peek into that community and the details are part of what makes this series unique and what keeps me hooked. I recommend this popular series for that reason even though the outcome of this plot line was easy to predict -- I'd say it's really more about characterization than any kind of suspense crime thriller.

Thank you to Minotaur/St. Martin's Press for this book ARC to read and review.

This is the ninth in a series that should be read, from the beginning, in order.

Genre - police procedural, Amish