AMONG THE WICKED Kate Burkholder, Book 8

If you haven't yet discovered Kate Burkholder, the Amish-born police chief of Painters Mill, Ohio, this fine performance by Kathleen McInerney is a perfect place to start. Burkholder is asked to leave her lover, Tomasseti, and her comfort zone, to infiltrate an old-order Amish community in upstate New York, where things have taken a sinister turn. Burkholder's inside knowledge of the hermetic Amish world is essential and illuminating. McInerney's masterly technique makes aural sense of the plain and kind Amish people bewildered by the violence, thuggery, and corruption that have come among them. McInerney's characters are alive, all human and believable, even at a sometimes blistering pace. I'm even prepared to believe that "danke" is pronounced "dahnkee" in Pennsylvania Dutch. B.G. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine [Published: SEPTEMBER 2016]