IN THE LAND OF MILK AND HONEY by Jane Jensen

 

Publisher:    Berkley  

Published:    August 2, 2016

ISBN:        978-0425282908

Genre:       Mystery

Format:     Print

Obtained via:  Publisher  

Reviewed by name and email address:  Gina  Ginalrmreviews@gmail.com

FIVE HEARTS

 

Elizabeth Harris’s life in Lancaster County has settled down somewhat.  She’s settled into a form of domestic bliss with her man, Ezra Beiler and her caseload at the police department has become more or less routine.  There’s crime, but nothing devastating.  She has time to visit with her friends, the Yoders.  At the end of her visit, however, Hannah Yoder takes her aside.  Something has happened in the Amish community, something that troubles Hannah.  While Hanna believes a Hexerei, a form of Amish voodoo, may be at work, Elizabeth doesn’t doubt it’s purely an evil human hand at work.  When an entire Amish family turns up dead by a mysterious illness, Elizabeth digs deeper into the investigation.  As more Amish families sicken and die, the CDC becomes involved and the investigation takes them out of Lancaster county.  When the investigation turns to raw milk from Amish farms, word spreads and their very livelihood is threatened. Elizabeth quickly realizes that not only is she in the middle of an investigation into a serial killer, but a divisive split between the Amish and “English.”  And beneath all of it, her relationship with Ezra begins to crack.  Can Elizabeth find the killer before he kills again?  And can she do it without losing Ezra and the support she so very much needs from him?

I loved Jane Jensen’s first Elizabeth Harris mystery, KINGDOM COME and she delivers another fabulous story in IN THE LAND OF MILK AND HONEY.  She layers the story bit by bit, building tension with each twist and turn.  Children aren’t just dying, they are being killed by a devious and seriously sick killer.  Jensen does a fantastic job bringing the reader into a battle between the Amish and “English” ways of life with Elizabeth straddling both worlds.  Not Amish herself, after all, she could not be a cop if she was, she walks a fine line between those worlds because she has friends in both.  Adding to those issues is her lover, Ezra, a man who was leaving the Amish when they met and who now still struggles with parts of his decision.  His struggles factor into the issues Elizabeth finds herself dealing with as she tracks the killer.  While this could lead to a muddle with a less skilled author, Jensen draws the reader in, building tension line by line.  As with KINGDOM COME, I started IN THE LAND OF MILK AND HONEY and couldn’t put it down.  I wanted to find out who the killer was as much as Elizabeth did and while I thought maybe I knew who the killer was, there was one other character I hoped it would be simply because of the way he acted around Elizabeth.  And Ezra, there is a vulnerability to him that rather than make him weak, makes him such a strong character.  He is the perfect foil for Elizabeth, a balance to her toughness while at the same time aiding her in his own way with solving the crimes that keep her awake at night.

This series is definitely going to be one of my all time favorite. I can’t wait for the next entry. This is one you do not want to miss.

This is an objective review and not an endorsement of this book.

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KINGDOM COME by Jane Jensen

Publisher:     Berkley

Published:     January 5, 2016

ISBN:       978-0425282892

Genre:      Mystery

Format:    Print

Obtained via:  Publisher  

Reviewed by name and email address:  Gina  Ginalrmreviews@gmail.com

FIVE HEARTS

Still emotionally hurting after her husband, Terry’s murder, former NYPD Detective Elizabeth Harris has returned to her home in Lancaster, in the Pennsylvania Dutch country.  There she’s joined the local police department and has been partnered with a more senior detective, Grady.  The peaceful routine of the town is shattered with the discovery of a murdered beautiful, scantily clad “English” girl named Jessica, in the barn of an elder in the Amish community.  Grady is convinced an outsider brought the dead girl’s body to the barn.  Elizabeth, however, strongly believes otherwise.  When an Amish girl, Katie, is also found dead, murdered in the same way Jessica was, Elizabeth is even more certain the killer is Amish, especially when she learns Jessica and Katie were friends.

While Elizabeth grew up in the area, it is Grady who has a deeper understanding of the Amish way of life.  As Elizabeth delves more deeply into the murder investigation she finds herself walking an almost undefinable line between the Amish and “English” world.  As a woman—a strong woman—she is enraged at what might have been sexual abuse of at least one of the murder victims.  On her own, still grieving the death of her husband she is confused and comes close to doubting her professional distance when she meets an Amish man, Ezra Beiler.  She is drawn to Ezra in a way she never imagined would happen again.  But there are problems—Ezra is from a different world than Elizabeth and he has his own problems and concerns.  More importantly, Ezra is a person of interest in the murders of Katie and Jessica. 

When the Amish elders demand Elizabeth be taken off the case and stay away from Ezra she is devastated.  Grady pulls her off the case…but Elizabeth cannot shake the belief that the murderer is hiding in plain site. 

Wow.  What a fantastic read.  I started reading Jane Jensen’s KINGDOM COME and just could not put it down.  Jensen gives her readers multi-dimensional characters, a compelling murder and an absorbing insight into not just the Amish way of life, but into both the internal and external conflicts of the people who walk the line between the two worlds.  She even tosses in a bit of humor through Ezra’s personality and his mule, Horse.  It is done as an integral part of Ezra’s personality making him even more likeable than the character already is.   

Elizabeth’s conflicts are multi-layered—dealing with her husband’s murder, trying to work with a strongly paternalistic culture while trying to solve a crime and finding herself falling for the very man who could have killed these young girls.  When Elizabeth finds a loophole to the order to stay away from the investigation I had a private fist bump moment. 

When the killer is revealed I was caught off guard—and the scenes that followed were wonderfully written.  This series is off to a fantastic start and there are enough initial conflicts between cultures and within the characters themselves that there is the potential for some really great future reads in this series.  I can’t wait for the next book to come out.

This is an objective review and not an endorsement of this book.