AFTER THE STORM

A small-town Ohio police chief is stressed to her limit by the aftermaths of a violent tornado and a crisis in her personal life.

Although Painters Mill Chief of Police Kate Burkholder has long since left the Amish community, she knows it's helped make her who she is. Her placid life with John Tomasetti, an agent in the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation who’s still haunted by the death of his wife and children, is interrupted when the area is struck by a tornado. After Kate rescues a child and mother from a demolished trailer, she’s sued for causing the child’s death and threatened by the meth-head father. The storm also discloses a surprise from the past. Boy Scouts cleaning up the destruction discover parts of a corpse in an old barn. A surgical plate found on the scene eventually helps identify the body as Mennonite Leroy Nolt, who vanished 30 years ago. Kate and her team are unsettled to learn that the missing parts of the body were almost certainly eaten by hogs. On the homefront, Kate’s recently discovered that she’s pregnant. Neither she nor Tomasetti feels ready for parenthood, but they can't agree about what to do. A quilt Leroy gave his mother leads back to a married member of the strict Swartzentruber sect. As the Amish community closes ranks and refuses to provide any information, Kate must search the past for answers while dealing with her personal crisis.

Castillo (The Dead Will Tell, 2014, etc.) poses another teasing puzzle whose solution is rooted in the past and another look at the secretive Amish lifestyle.