Bah. Protaganist sure acts idiotically for a seasoned homicide detective. ( )

After a thirteen-year hiatus from publishing fiction under her own name, Jane Jensen returned to prose fiction with gusto in 2016, publishing two mystery novels in a new series about a Detective Elizabeth Harris. Kingdom Come is the first of this new series, introducing Elizabeth Harris as a detective returning home to rural Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. After the brutal and random murder of her husband, Terry, in New York City, Elizabeth is escaping the complexity and the purported darkness of her urban lifestyle. It’s her hope that the simplicity and nostalgia of a rural community with an integrated Amish population would be enough to pull her out of her shell.

[N.B. This review includes images, and was formatted for my site, dendrobibliography -- located here.]

Brutality is everywhere, unfortunately, and Kingdom Come opens with the murder of a teenage girl named Jessica. Her body’s carried through the freezing snow — and through a freezing creek — and dumped in the barn of an Amish family of no relation. Jessica was an ‘English’ — an outsider seemingly disconnected from the Amish community. Her body is arranged to imply a sex-related murder, but none of the finer details of her murder seem to fit that arrangement: Why was she dumped there? why was her body stored in and by the creek for a period of hours? Jessica was hit from behind — not too hard — and then suffocated while remaining unconscious, which also seems to contradict the context of sexual assault, so why the prepared arrangement?

The Amish community is hesitant to help — not out of guilt or suspicion being cast, but due to the community’s beliefs in privacy and God’s will. Their apparent indifference to a young woman’s murder is infuriating to Harris, who juggles respect for the community and individuals with a sense of being challenged and disrespected both as an English and a woman. Not only do they not seem to care for the dead English woman, but they imply she was asking for it by living dangerously and engaging in sex.

Kingdom Come carries a lot of similarities to David Lynch’s classic TV show, Twin Peaks. As the story of Jessica’s death unfolds, the body of a missing Amish girl is found miles away; the lives of these young girls, initially painted as sweet and innocent, start uncovering dark and disturbing revelations within and outside Lancaster’s Amish community. The quaint idyll dissolves under the weight of our cultures’ cruel realities.

Jensen draws her characters very well. Elizabeth Harris is written as Jensen herself, embittered by the recent tragedies in her life, she’s a snarky, sharp-witted voice, always quick to outpace her co-workers and counter the sexist expectations of the culture she inhabits. She and her co-workers, like her boss Grady, share a close rapport, which contributes a sense of humor to the novel and helps lighten the dark events they’re investigating. Elizabeth, too, falls for one of the Amish — a hunk of a man named Ezra who’s battling his own demons and on the verge of leaving the Amish way of life. Their relationship is, to put it bluntly, adorable, and the romance between their personalities feels genuine and touching on its own. In the context of the mystery, however, the romance feels out of place, and it leaps ahead over Ezra’s attractive body and Elizabeth’s devotion to the case to be shockingly unprofessional and poorly-paced. I loved these two together, but their relationship lacked definition and clashes with the narrative’s short length.

Also, while the mystery is compelling and well-written, at roughly the two-thirds point, I felt like the entire investigative team gave up in the face of overwhelming evidence, and performed leaps in logic in order to avoid investigating, discussing, or acknowledging in any way a conclusion that was all too obvious. The villain was clear by this point — though a few more twists are still to come! — and it felt like Harris and Grady disregarded good evidence as bad, and instead took bad evidence as good, which only padded out the length of the investigation and gave more narrative time to the romantic storyline.

The mystery is benefited by Jensen’s background in the video game industry. As part of Sierra On-Line in the ’90s, she became known for the Gabriel Knight series of point-and-click adventures — a series which was defined by a breadth of research on the parts of Jensen, Gabriel Knight, and the players themselves, in order to uncover complex conspiracies mired in exotic cultural and social histories. Jensen pays her respect to the Amish community with Kingdom Come, using her research to paint the community as they are. By definition, it’s always from an outsider’s perspective, but a respectful one that avoids condescension or cultural appropriation.

Kingdom Come carries with it many issues — unusual pacing, a dichotomy between characters’ logic and actions, and a romantic angle that sometimes gets awkward — but it’s the best kind of brain candy. The lead characters all shine with personality, the rural community of Lancaster County brings with it a warm sense of nostalgia for simpler times (despite the falsity of such feelings), and the mystery proves mostly compelling. Once the mystery was solved, Lancaster Co. was hard to leave behind, and I can’t wait to see where the series and characters go next. ( )

Kingdom Come by Jane Jensen is An Elizabeth Harris Mystery set in Paradise, Pennsylvania (Lancaster County). Elizabeth Harris is a detective with Lancaster City Bureau of Police. She moved back to Paradise eight months ago after living in Manhattan for ten years (working on NYPD). Elizabeth’s husband was murdered, and she needs to get away from the memories (and have a quieter life). Detective Lieutenant Mike Grady calls Elizabeth out to a homicide in an Amish barn. A young woman (scantily dressed) was killed in Amos Miller’s barn (actually dumped in the barn) and Jacob Miller (age 11) found her when he came to do chores. Elizabeth and Mike partner up to solve the case. Elizabeth’s boss (and Mike) believe that a non-Amish person committed the crime. Elizabeth is not so sure, but she has no concrete proof or a good lead. Then a second girl (Katie Yoder) who was missing turns up dead. Katie Yoder is an Amish teen who has been missing for a while. Are the two girl’s deaths connected? Elizabeth sets out to find the killer within a tight knit community. One of the suspects, Ezra Beiler turns out to be very attractive and Elizabeth feels a connection with him. Will Elizabeth let her feelings get in the way of solving a case?

Kingdom Come is not what I expected. It starts off very slow and is hard to get into (it does get better). There is foul language (too much of it and it is not needed), lust, and sex. I felt that the romance between Elizabeth and Ezra developed too quickly and it seemed to go against Ezra’s beliefs (it just did not feel right). The mystery in Kingdom Come was very easy to solve (child’s play). I felt that the killer was so obvious. I kept hoping for a twist, but I did not get one. Kingdom Come needed some polishing which would have made it a better book. I give Kingdom Come 3 out of 5 stars (which means it was okay). It was a good first book in a series, and I hope the next one will be much better.

I received a complimentary copy of Kingdom Come from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. ( )

Homicide detective Elizabeth Harris has returned to her rural Pennsylvania roots after her husband =was murdered in New York City. She is still mourning when a teenage girl is found dead in the barn on one of the many Amish farms in the area. Elizabeth must deal with the reticence of the Amish community, their resistance to dealing with a woman in her role, and her boss's insistence that the crime was committed by an "English," as the non-Amish are called. Her life is complicated by her strong attraction to a young Amish widower.

The mystery element is handled well, and the resistance of the Amish is a nice wrinkle. Since this is the first of a series, I wonder whether Elizabeth will develop a more positive relationship with the Amish community. She gets away with some investigative techniques that would be recognized by more worldly folks as disqualifying key evidence; has she taken advantage
of the Amish tradition of simplicity? Elizabeth seems to have good investigative instincts, a good sense of herself as a woman in a non-traditional role, and a good working relationship with her new colleagues. However...

The romantic aspect of the story was a bit problematic, in a couple of respects. First, Elizabeth's attraction to Ezra was strictly physical; she doesn't get to know him at all before she lusts after his body. I would have preferred that he be more than just another Hot Amish Guy. Second, her developing relationship with him is ludicrously unprofessional. I certainly enjoy romance in the middle of a mystery story, such as one finds in Julia Spencer-Fleming or Deborah Crombie, and seeing Elizabeth beginning to emerge from mourning to being ready to relate to a man again adds to her personality, but it undercuts her role as a
professional woman. (I wonder if I would have the same problem with a man in a similar situation. Assignment: identify one and see what I think.) Her behavior is pretty far removed from her thoughts about herself as a professional. Perhaps she is a character in whom the romantic person will continue to fight with the professional person; I can see that being interesting.

So the story is not without its problems, but it is nicely written and an easy read, with a character (there is, unfortunately, not all that much to anyone other than Elizabeth) who shows the potential to develop in interesting ways. ( )

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
-Sir John Dalberg-Acton-

The Amish way of life appears as a uncomplicated existence filled with strong acts of faith, lots of energy and hard work. But undercurrents can and do exist within this closed community of Paradise, Pennsylvania. Yet, the outside world is generally oblivious to them...that is until a murdered "English" (non-Amish) girl is discovered inside an Amish farm's barn.

The recently arrived detective, Elizabeth Harris, formerly of the NYPD, is on the case and eager to bring the perpetrator to justice. But she steps on a few too many Amish corns, grates against the patriarchal leadership and is forced to stay away from the community and work the case through her male colleagues. This police procedural-murder mystery is well crafted with twists and turns along the way as suspects surface, are vetted and subsequently cleared. If only Detective Harris could get close enough to hunt down the clues herself. Then they might just be able to put this case to bed and move on.

This story provides a glimpse into the closely guarded life of the Amish. We come to understand their resistance to outside influence and meddling in what they consider to be their own affairs. The roles of women of the Amish and "English" world are presented in stark contrast yet beautifully rendered when they meet on common ground.

This is a fast-paced, quick read and thoroughly enjoyable. Find a quiet comfortable corner, settle in for a bit of crime solving and prepare for an enjoyable read.

I am grateful to author Jane Jensen, publisher Penguin Random House LLC and Goodreads Giveaway program for having provided a free uncorrected proof copy of this book. Their generosity did not, however, influence this review - the words of which are mine alone. ( )