Windows To The World

BROKEN ENGLISH

P.L. Gaus

A trend that I have noticed lately is the large number of readers I encounter who are into stories based on the Amish culture. What I have discovered is that people are intrigued by the combination of the known and the unknown.

Readers like the fact that they can most likely rely on these books not to be filled with gore or blue language. They usually can expect not to run into graphic violence or sexual behavior. The Amish culture is a mystery to most of the readers as well. None of the readers I have questioned has any desire to be Amish; they just admire what they think they know.

In BROKEN ENGLISH by P. L. Gaus we have a book that falls into the murder mystery genre. It is the second in a series billed as  ‘an Amish country mystery’.

Jesse Sands after serving a sentence of 25 years in a New Jersey prison was released and he quickly headed west, across Pennsylvania and West Virginia towards Ohio. Behind him he left a wide swath of murder and destruction as he exacts a harsh measure of revenge on every innocent who helps him. On a rainy night in Millersburg he looks for shelter and for something to steal since he is running out of money. He is surprised by a young woman who has the opportunity to dial 911 before she is shot and killed by Sands. Sands is accosted outside the house as he leaves and is arrested.

Later the girl’s father David Hawkins asked to see the prisoner and his wish is granted. He has come to forgive Sands in the Amish way. After Hawkins tells Sands that he forgives him Sands whispers something that makes Hawkins go berserk and he tries to throttle the murderer but he is restrained. But he takes down the deputy who took him in and then he leaves. Now no one can find him.

David Hawkins was once a highly trained soldier who was trained to kill by the U. S. Military. In order to gain some measure of tranquility he contacted an Amish friend of his and did what was necessary to join the Amish community. He has been among the Plain people for seven years when this tragedy struck him. A basic part of the Amish belief is that vengeance belongs to God and He will deal with it in time. Everybody is afraid that David has cracked and reverted to his old ways, but David’s closest friends have grim faith that he is still abiding by the Amish pacifist ways.

In a few days another murder takes place and a reporter who had been looking into David Hawkins’s background is found shot in the head. Now the Sheriff is confident that David Hawkins has reverted to the military killer that he once was. A wide spread man hunt for the man is ordered. Professor Michael Brandon of the local college and Pastor Caleb Troyer who are usually the sheriff’s allies feel that there is more to this story and they begin to build a very different case.

Paul Louis Gaus lives in Wooster, Ohio a few miles north of Holmes County, where the world’s largest and most varied settlement of Amish and Mennonite people are found. His knowledge of the ‘Plain People’ comes from exploring narrow blacktop roads and gravel lanes of the communities that live close to the ‘English’ non -Amish people. 

We all known from current events that a community make seek to preserve a way of life but that sometimes evil people and evil deeds break down the walls of any way of life. So murder mysteries and crime stories revolving around a reclusive pacifist sect or culture are bound to be written, read and enjoyed for many different reasons. Human frailty spares no one and that is the grist to fiction writing.