A Prayer for the Night (Ohio Amish Mystery Series #5) - Softcover

Gaus, P. L.

3.82

423 ratings by Goodreads

9780821416730: A Prayer for the Night (Ohio Amish Mystery Series #5)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0821416731 ISBN 13: 9780821416730

Publisher: Ohio University Press, 2006

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Amid a whirlwind of drugs, sex, and other temptations of the English” world, a group of Amish teenagers on their Rumschpringe test the limits of their parents’ religion to the breaking point. The murder of one and the abduction of another challenge Professor Michael Branden as he confronts the communal fear that the young people can never be brought home safely.

Along with Holmes County Sheriff Bruce Robertson and Pastor Cal Troyer, Professor Branden works against the clock to find a murderer and a kidnapper, and to break a drug ring operating in the county, determined, wherever the trail may lead him, to restore the shattered community. In his desperate search, Branden struggles with the reluctance of the Amish to trust the law to help them find the answers to their problems.

In A Prayer for the Night, his fifth Ohio Amish Mystery, P. L. Gaus deftly balances the pace and practices of Amish life in northern Ohio against the unfolding urgency of a hostage situation. As Gaus has proven before, the mystery gains from its exploration of the ever-widening chasm between the traditional life of the Amish people and their interaction with the outside world.

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About the Author:

P. L. Gaus is the author of the Ohio Amish Mysteries, including, most recently, Cast a Blue Shadow.

Review:

Amish teenagers run wild during Rumschpringe, their time of testing in the outside English’ world, in Gaus’s absorbing fifth entry in this powerful series.... Detailed Amish funeral and wedding rites conclude an otherwise taut tale, offering fascinating insights into this closed society’s struggle to maintain traditions amid a rapidly changing world.”
Publishers Weekly

Sober and authentic, Gaus’s well-paced fifth takes a hard look at the risks the community must take and the compromises it makes to preserve itself in an ever-more-complex world.”
Kirkus Reviews

Gaus usually writes quiet novels, but this one is harsher than his others, full of suspense, the immediacy of a hostage situation, and in-depth Amish funeral rites.”
Library Journal

An engaging twist in this novel is that, unlike most mystery writers, Gaus spends relatively little time on the motives and personality of the chief villain.’ Instead, he focuses on the reactions of the direct and indirect victims of the crime the kids, their parents and extended family, and their developing view of the way the world should work . (C)learly defined characters and a vivid sense of place.”
ForeWord Magazine

Gaus is a sensitive storyteller who matches his cadences to the measured pace of Amish life, catching the tensions among the village’s religious factions.”
The New York Times

The strength of this book and of all the others in this well-textured and lovingly tended series...is Gaus’s great skill in telling his tale of children and adults lost and saved, their various physical, mental, and spiritual crises....”
The Bloomsbury Review

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