Sworn to Silence

Locations
Call Number: Mystery, Adult Book / Fiction / Mystery / General / Castillo, Linda
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Pittsfield Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Mystery	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Pittsfield Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Mystery / General / Castillo, Linda	4-week checkout	On Shelf

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Disappointing submitted by willow on August 25, 2016, 6:50am This book was just not as good as I hoped. The writing was not that great, and the pacing was really, really slow. It also features an incredibly disgusting series of crimes, described in gory detail. However, the ending took me by surprise, which made me happy.

It features Kate Burkholder, a police chief who was raised Amish but was never baptized, and left home at 18, to return later as the police chief, where she is able to work with both the Amish and non-Amish communities in her town. We are told about fifty times that she was subject to the "bann," which most of us have heard of as shunning, for leaving her community. Strangely, though, my understanding is that this is not how Amish culture/religion actually works; I do not believe (nor could I find any evidence to support) that an UN-baptized person would be shunned, because they never took the vows to join the community. That seems like a bizarre oversight. In any event, even though it was fair for Kate to mention this, every time, it was presented as if it was news.

The story took forever to get off the ground, and would often get stuck on one point for a while, with no real "movement" at all.

Then, maybe to improve the diversity of the book (which includes an African American officer), there suddenly appears a retired police chief from a town in Alaska, with the name of "Ogusawara", the rarity of which becomes a way to track him down. No wonder, as this name is not a valid Japanese name; that would be "Ogasawara." Anyway, this retired police chief, who worked for decades in the US, nonetheless has "a strong Asian accent" and is a fan of leaving off articles and verbs, or failing to have proper subject-verb agreement, meaning that he sounds like Mr. Miyagi in the Karate Kid: "Who want to know?" and "Bad medicine, those murders. Give everyone nightmares, including me. What you want to know?" Isn't it time to retire this vision of Asian Americans formed from watching Charlie on Mr. Magoo and Mr. Yunioshi from Breakfast at Tiffany's??

Best of all was the male police officer who commented on the furniture, cabinets, and Corian countertop in Kate's kitchen. Corian countertops? Really?