Separate from the World — 2008 ·

An Ohio Amish Mystery

“In Gaus’s excellent sixth Ohio Amish mystery … a convincing plot and credible, sympathetic characters make another winner in this fine regional series.”

Starred Review — Publishers Weekly

“[Gaus’s] writing is crisp and fast-paced, his depiction of the Amish sympathetic yet realistic. . . . [An] enjoyable, interesting novel. Only one caveat: It’s too short!”

Ohioana Quarterly

“With each new mystery, P. L. Gaus treats us to yet another view of life among the Old Order Amish in Holmes County, Ohio. But Separate from the World feels darker than some of his previous books. . . [H]e has great admiration for the Amish themselves, writing with quiet gravity about aspects of their lives rarely shown to strangers.”

New York Times Book Review

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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 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 his colleagues Pastor Cal Troyer and Sheriff Bruce Robertson to seek explanations for these bizarre events.

Separate from the World is a story of a rift between two Amish factions, one that favors the use of medicine and that participates in a college study of genetic traits particular to the Amish community, and the other that rejects any outside influence.

Once more, P. L. Gaus takes us inside a separate culture and, in a manner both gentle and grim, highlights the complex relationship of the Amish and the “English” as they live inside or outside each other’s orbits.

P. L. Gaus is the author of six books in the Ohio Amish Mystery series. He is retired from the chemistry department at the College of Wooster, where he was a professor and served as chairperson. Gaus's novels have been reviewed favorably by numerous publications, including Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and The New York Times Book Review. He keeps in touch with his fans through his blog, P. L. Gaus's Ohio Amish Journal.

Visit his blog at P. L. Gaus’s Ohio Amish Journal.

Visit his website at P. L. Gaus