REVIEW: After the Storm

After the Storm
Author: Linda Castillo

The Kate Burkholder series is one of my favorites. Kate is the police chief in Painters Mill, OH. She grew up Amish but left the faith as a teenager after a traumatizing event. She walks the line between the Amish population of the county and the "Englishers'' as best she can, still feeling the sting of being chastised or even shunned for leaving the Amish way.

After the Storm is the 7th book in the series. A tornado touches down in the county. It destroys a trailer park and injures or kills several people, including an infant Kate tried to save from a damaged trailer. It also uncovers skeletal remains in an old barn. The remains might be a local man who disappeared in the 1980s. Kate jumps in to investigate how the remains ended up in the old barn and who might be responsible. While juggling this cold case, she's also trying to figure out her complicated relationship with John Tomasetti.

I enjoyed the investigation portion of this book....but the side plot of Kate and John's relationship left me cold this time around. Tomasetti acted like a pig most of the time.....and Kate acted incredibly immature. The plot line of Tomasetti brooding about his murdered family and saying/doing things to Kate that border on abuse using that past trauma as an excuse is just getting OLD. He went about four steps over the line in this book....   I really think Kate should have walked away from him at the end of this novel. Seriously. But she isn't golden either.....she pulled some serious crap herself. I realize the author is trying to build tension in their relationship....I just didn't like the tension she chose to build in this story between Burkholder and Tomasetti. They either need to figure it out -- or split up. Or their relationship needs to just fade to the background, secondary to the investigations. I'm getting seriously tired of Tomasetti.

Regardless of my feelings about the relationship side plot, I enjoyed this book. The mystery moved along at a nice pace, and had some surprises along the way. I did not expect the ending. Enjoyable story! On to the next book in the series!