Review: After the Storm

After the Storm by Linda Castillo
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

F5 Tornado hits Painters Mill and first responder Kate and her partner, Tomasetti rescue and woman and her 4-month-old baby girl from a mobile home. Amid the devastation of the area a Boy Scout Troop is cleaning up the area around an old barn when one boy turns over what he thinks is a rock but turns out to be a human skull.

It is interesting how many different types of scientists can become involved in determining the sex, age at death, age at discovery, race ect of the person to whom this partial skeleton belongs. DNA is only one substance used and simple visual observation of the bones gives minimal information. Interesting, too, are the various levels of Amish religious observation and the depths to which hatred among them exists. The difference between Mennonite and Amish is also interesting. How this bias plays out among families is chilling at times and, in this case, deadly.

On a personal level, Kate and Tomasetti find themselves in a situation that reveals hidden attitudes about their future together. Fiction, unlike life, however, allows the problem to be solved, even if the solution is too easy and not very satisfactory. For the characters, it is not an easy outcome.

In addition to these plot points there is also the revelation about hog raising that has forever changed my viewpoint on it and them. We've raised pigs, usually two at a time and am grateful they were never starving and I was never in the pen with them. But, if ever I want to hide a body I now know how to dispose of it.

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