Reading Skywards – Your Friendly Bookshelf

INFORMATION ABOUT THIS BOOK
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Thomas & Mercer
Publication date ‏ : ‎ January  1, 2024
Format:  Hardcover, Paperback, audiobook, and ebook
Print length ‏ : ‎ 395 pages
Genre:  Crime and Criminal Biographies

MY PERSONAL OPINION OF “THE AMISH WIFE”

I got the book with the Prime Kindle Subscription and this was very different from what I have been reading lately because I tend to read fiction most of the time. But I was intrigued by the excerpt of the book and decided to give it a chance and I am happy I did.

Through the book you both see the story of Ida developing towards finding out that she was killed and by whom. The story develops as the author does research on the past and interviews with the surviving witnesses and relatives of the witnesses. I enjoyed how The Amish community is represented both as honest and good-mannered people and as very protective of their community. You see The Amish community wanted justice and at the same time giving forgiveness and it was very impressive to me.

You also see how much work it takes to write a non-fiction book based on true crime. The back and forth between finding information for a crime that happened decades ago and trying to tie ends with living relatives and witnesses.

PREMISE OF THE BOOK AS FOUND IN AMAZON / GOODREADS:

In 1977, in an Ohio Amish community, pregnant wife and mother Ida Stutzman perished during a barn fire. The coroner’s report: natural causes. Ida’s husband, Eli, was never considered a suspect. But when he eventually rejected the faith and took his son, Danny, with him, murder followed.

What really happened to Ida? The dubious circumstances of the tragic blaze were willfully ignored and Eli’s shifting narratives disregarded. Could Eli’s subsequent cross-country journey of death―including that of his own son―have been prevented if just one person came forward with what they knew about the real Eli Stutzman?

The questions haunted Gregg Olsen and Ida’s brother Daniel Gingerich for decades. At Daniel’s urging, Olsen now returns to Amish Country and to Eli’s crimes first exposed in Olsen’s Abandoned Prayers, one of which has remained a mystery until now. With the help of aging witnesses and shocking long-buried letters, Olsen finally uncovers the disturbing truth―about Ida’s murder and the conspiracy of silence and secrets that kept it hidden for forty-five years.

MY RATING:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bibliography:

• If You Tell
• The Last Thing She Ever Did
• American Mother
• Lying Next to Me
• American Black Widow
• Abandoned Prayers
• Starvation Heights
• The Sound of Rain
• The Weight of Silence