Our featured guest this week is P.L. (Paul) Gaus, author of The Amish-Country Mysteries!
Check out Paul's website here: http://www.plgaus.com/
Broken English
Clouds without Rain
About P.L. Gaus:
Paul L. Gaus was born in Athens, Ohio, in 1949, and he has lived in Ohio for most of his life. He has lived in Wooster, Ohio, for the past 33 years with his wife Madonna. Paul's extensive knowledge of the culture and lifestyle of the Ohio Amish comes from over thirty years of travel throughout Holmes and surrounding counties in Ohio, where the world's largest Amish and Mennonite population sprawls out over the countryside near Millersburg, Wooster, and Sugarcreek.
Paul took an interest in writing fiction in 1993, and with the advice and encouragement of author Tony Hillerman, he began writing mystery novels set among the Amish in Holmes County, Ohio. The first of Gaus's mysteries, Blood of the Prodigal, An Ohio Amish Mystery, was published by Ohio University Press in June of 1999, and a total of six novels have appeared in this series:Broken English, 2000, Clouds without Rain, 2001, Cast a Blue Shadow, 2003, A Prayer for the Night, 2006, and Separate from the World, 2008. A seventh novel in the series is in preparation.
All of Paul's stories have now been republished by Plume (a division of Penguin Group USA) as The Amish-Country Mysteries, and these editions have been embraced by Christian retailers such as CBD.com, Family Christian Stores, and LifeWay. The publication date for Blood of the Prodigal, An Amish-Country Mystery was September 28, 2010, and the other five novels in the series were published approximately one a month for the next several months. Future mysteries in the series will still first be published in hard cover editions, as The Amish-Country Mysteriesby Ohio University Press, with Plume bringing out the soft cover editions some time later.
Paul and his wife Madonna still travel frequently in Holmes County. He lectures widely about Amish culture at libraries, bookstores, literary societies, and the like, and his books have been featured at Book Expo America and similar professional shows around the country. Paul's novels have been reviewed in prominent journals and newspapers, for instance, Kirkus Reviews, ForeWord Magazine, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Booklist, Ohioana Quarterly, and the New York Times Book Review.
Paul retired recently as the Benjamin S. Brown Professor of Chemistry at The College of Wooster, where he was Chairperson of the Chemistry Department. He was educated at Miami University (B.S.) and Duke University (Ph.D.), and he has held positions as Visiting Professor of Chemistry at the University of Illinois, Texas A&M University, University of Wisconsin (Madison), and The Ohio State University. In his academic career, he taught chemistry at the freshman, junior, and senior levels, and he is co-author of the best-selling senior text, Basic Inorganic Chemistry, published in its third edition in 1995, by John Wiley and Sons.
A Prayer for the Night (Ohio Amish Mystery Series #5)
A PRAYER FOR THE NIGHT
Amid a whirlwind of drugs, sex, and other temptations of the "English" world, a group of Amish teenagers on the Rumschpringe test the limits of their parent’s religion to the breaking point. The murder of one teenager 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 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.
Excerpts from Reviews of A Prayer for the Night
Publishers Weekly
“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.”
The Budget (Sugarcreek, Ohio)
“The author treats his Amish characters with respect, explaining customs, tradition and belief with crystal clarity and deep understanding. There are no stereotypes here, and the plot is simple, yet well constructed, so readers of various ages can enjoy the book.”
ForeWord Magazine
“. . . by taking the readers into the farms, homes and front porches of the understandably suspicious Amish, he brings alive a complex society that is generally depicted in picture-book stereotypes.”
Separate from the World (Ohio Amish Mystery Series #6)
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 college 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 Pastor Cal Troyer and Sheriff Bruce Robertson to seek explanations for these bizarre events.
Set against the rift between two Amish factions, one participating in a college study of genetic traits particular to their community and the other rejecting any outside influence, Separate from the World takes us inside the culture and, in a manner both gentle and grim, highlights the complex relationship of the Amish and the "English" as their separate worlds intersect.
Excerpts from Reviews of Separate from the World
Kirkus Reviews
"A perceptive look at problems that have no easy solutions."
Publishers Weekly
". . . a convincing plot and credible, sympathetic characters make another winner in this fine regional series"
NY Times Book Review
"With each new mystery, P. L. Gaus treats us to yet another view of life among the Old Order Amish . . ." Gaus writes with quiet gravity about aspects of their lives rarely shown to strangers."
Portsmouth Herald (New Hampshire)
"Gaus takes the reader deep into the community, informing his prose with the Amish philosophy and the rites, relationships and problems of this isolated people. His measured approach transports the reader into the Amish world, ever beleaguered by the temptations of the outside, battered by the sudden violence, but serene in its choices."
Ohioana Quarterly
"Gaus creates believable characters, both in the college and the local Amish community, and lets them act out their stories. His writing is crisp and fast-paced, and his depiction of the Amish sympathetic yet realistic."
Magill Book Reviews
" . . P. L. Gaus has again created a suspenseful mystery that is remarkable for its insights into two very different cultures."
Synopsis
As he goes about his milking chores on a cold October morning, Bishop Leon Shetler daydreams of escaping the Ohio winter and taking a bus to the Pinecraft Amish community in Florida for a vacation. His reverie is suddenly interrupted when young Crist Burkholder enters the barn, head down, hat in hand, to make a confession. “I just killed Glenn Spiegle.” An Amish murderer? No sooner does the sheriff start his investigation than he learns of two more murders in the Pinecraft community, and a startling connection is made.
In Harmless as Doves, P. L. Gaus takes the action to Florida in one of the most exciting mysteries in the series. This is Gaus at his best.
Biography
P. L. Gaus lives in Wooster, Ohio, an area that is home to the world’s largest settlement of Amish and Mennonite people. He lectures widely about the lifestyles, culture, and religion of the Amish. Read more about his unique experiences at http://blogs.ohioswallow.com/gaus/ or http://www.plgaus.com.
