P.L. Gaus Books In Order

Amish-Country Mysteries Books In Publication Order

  1. Blood of the Prodigal (1999)
  2. Broken English (2000)
  3. Clouds Without Rain (2001)
  4. Cast a Blue Shadow (2003)
  5. A Prayer for the Night (2006)
  6. Separate from the World (2008)
  7. Murder Most Amish (2010)
  8. Harmless as Doves (2011)
  9. The Names of Our Tears (2013)
  10. Whiskers of the Lion (2015)
  11. Stars for Lydia (2019)

Amish-Country Mysteries Book Covers

P.L. Gaus Books Overview

Blood of the Prodigal

A compulsively readable new series that explores a fascinating culture set purposely apart. In the wooded Amish hill country, a professor at a small college, a local pastor, and the county sheriff are the only ones among the mainstream, or ‘English,’ who possess the instincts and skills to work the cases that impact all county residents, no matter their code of conduct or religious creed. When an Amish boy is kidnapped, a bishop, fearful for the safety of his followers, plunges three outsiders into the traditionally closed society of the ‘Plain Ones.’

Broken English

The peaceful town of Millersburg, Ohio, in the heart of Ohio’s Amish country, is rocked by the vicious murder of one of its citizens at the hands of an ex convict. When a local reporter covering the story ends up dead as well, with the convict already behind bars, suspicion falls on David Hawkins, father of the first victim. But Hawkins is nowhere to be found, not even among the protective Amish colony that had taken him in as one of its own regardless of his shadowy past. Following on the critical and popular success of his first book, mystery writer P. L. Gaus again brings us a moral and legal conundrum as Professor Michael Branden, Sheriff Bruce Robertson, and Pastor Cal Troyer set out to uncover the truth that seems so elusive in their otherwise quiet corner of the world. Along the way, Gaus paints a unique portrait of the relationship between the Amish and the ‘English’ cultures as seen from the inside. Against this backdrop, Broken English is a tale of honor, deception, and revenge, where circumstances and the search for justice test the mettle of the closest of friends and reveal the desperate measures of the strongest of foes.

Clouds Without Rain

In the wake of a horrific accident involving an Amish horse-and-buggy and an eighteen-wheeler, Professor Michael Branden, working with the Holmes County Sheriff’s department, becomes suspicious about the true nature of the crash. His suspicions grow when the trustee of the dead man’s estate turns up missing a few days later, and Branden knows he has more on his hands than a buggy crash on a sleepy country road. With Amish teenagers robbing buggies on dusty lanes, with land swindles involving out-of-town developers, with several dead and a bank official missing, Branden struggles to understand the connections that will eventually link all of the pieces together. Clouds Without Rain is a well-plotted story about the very core of the human condition, as illustrated by Amish thought and faith, and by their stewardship of the land they hold so sacred. Once again, P. L. Gaus provides compelling intrigue along with an insight into the heart of a culture making its way side by side with contemporary American life.

Cast a Blue Shadow

After the first blizzard of an early winter, a Mennonite college girl with a troubled past appears curled up and bloodied outside the offce of her childhood psychiatrist. Mute for many years as a child, Martha Lehman is again not talking. That same morning, the wealthy mother of Martha’s boyfriend is found murdered in her mansion in the country west of Millersburg, Ohio. Professor Mi chael Branden and Sheriff Bruce Robertson begin an investigation that, in the space of a single weekend, implicates Martha, threatens to tear apart the fabric of Millersburg College, pits one professor against another, and brings Caroline Branden near to a breaking point over the girl she once tried so fervently to help and who now seems determined to let no one help her at all. As Martha struggles to understand her enigmatic past and as Professor Branden wrestles with the murder of the college 6’s leading benefactor, the real story of Martha Lehman emerges born Amish, converted to Mennonite, and drawn to the English world for the worst of reasons. In Cast a Blue Shadow, his fourth Ohio Amish Mystery, P. L. Gaus continues to explore the thresholds of culture and faith among the Amish sects and their English neighbors of northern Ohio. Through interwoven plots, Gaus portrays these ways of life at odds with one another despite their seeming harmony. Coupling those clashes with the petty and desperate scufflings of academic politics, Gaus spins a suspenseful tale of power, pride, and tested faith. With Cast a Blue Shadow, Professors Branden and Gaus have done it again.

A Prayer for the Night

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.

Separate from the World

As another college year draws to an end, Professor Michael Branden is weary after nearly thirty years of teaching. Sitting in his office on a warm spring day, he receives an unexpected visit from an Amish man who claims his brother, a dwarf like himself, has been murdered. Their discussion of the odd details of the case is interrupted by a commotion on campus, which turns out to be the apparent suicide of a young woman, who, it seems, has leapt to her death from the college bell tower. The investigations of these two deaths become intertwined as Professor Branden again teams up with his colleagues Pastor Cal Troyer and Sheriff Bruce Robertson to seek explanations for these bizarre events. Separate from the World is a story of a rift between two Amish factions, one that favors the use of medicine and that participates in a college study of genetic traits particular to the Amish community, and the other that rejects any outside influence. Once more, P. L. Gaus takes us inside a separate culture and, in a manner both gentle and grim, highlights the complex relationship of the Amish and the English as they live inside or outside each other’s orbits.

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