At the talks I give around the country, people often ask me why I write murder mysteries about Amish people, who are arguably the most peaceful Americans anyone knows, and my answer is always in two parts. First, I think Amish society is endlessly fascinating, and it deserves to be better understood by Christians in particular and by all Americans in general. Second, I think crime fiction gives us one of the best vehicles in popular fiction to explore the human condition.
I write about all aspects of Amish society, including religion, lifestyle, traditions, and separateness, and I hope my readers will gain a better understanding of even the most subtle points of Amish culture. What is it like to live Amish, to think Amish, and to pray Amish? Why do Amish people insist on living by the severest of rules, which they believe are derived from scripture? Why do they hold themselves apart from the rest of us, travel only in horse-drawn buggies, farm the old ways, eschew most modern conveniences, worship privately, and hold to Christian pacifism more doggedly than they do to their own safety and well-being? These are the types of cultural and religious gems I try to mine.
The first six mysteries in the series addressed shunning and repentance, pacifism and vengeance, life struggles in a closed society, failures of leadership, the teenagers’ Rumspringe to test the benefits of modern life, and genetic defects resulting from close intermarriage. The seventh novel (Harmless as Doves, Plume – 2012) examined the burden of misguided authoritarian rule that is present in some Amish families. It was set partly in the Amish winter vacation colony in Pinecraft, Florida, in the eastern suburbs of Sarasota. I revisit the Florida setting in the eighth story (The Names of Our Tears, Plume - 2013), about the vulnerability of young and unsuspecting Amish people to nefarious influences in the modern world. But for the most part, my stories are draped across the numerous cultural divides that exist between Amish and English (non-Amish) people in Holmes County, Ohio. One Amish sect is pitched against another. English characters are perplexed and challenged by Amish practices. In Holmes County, the mix of cultures is so broad and intense that I couldn’t ask for a more dramatic setting to draw out Amish culture and contrast it with its neighbors.
Naturally I find that readers want to know if my novels ‘ring true’ to Amish life. The best answer I have for this is the story of an Old Order Amish farmer who read several of my books and remarked to his English neighbor (who had loaned him the books) that, “These are such marvelous stories. And just think – they are all true!” When she told him that they were works of fiction from start to finish, he became both embarrassed and angry, explaining that the bishop in his congregation did not permit his people to read fiction. What irony! This fellow was in trouble with his bishop because he had been reading my books. And what a marvelous compliment to an author. That’s precisely the kind of authenticity I have been striving for in the Amish-Country Mysteries – to portray Amish culture so thoroughly and accurately that even the practitioners themselves will think the tales are true.
