Akron Beacon Journal reviews A Prayer for the Night

May 14, 2006

Most teens have cell phones, computers and cars. But not most Amish teens, unless they're on their rumschpringe, the traditional “wild time'” during which they explore the outside world, weighing their faith against freedom and individuality.

In A Prayer for the Night, fifth in P.L. Gaus' Ohio Amish Mystery series, the rumschpringe has gone much too far. Most Amish parents discreetly look the other way at unlicensed driving and necking in movie theaters, but this year, nine Holmes County teens have formed a gang, text-messaging Global Positioning System coordinates for parties and carrying around inexplicably large amounts of cash.

When gang member John Schlabaugh is found buried in a shallow grave and another youth remains unaccounted for, the police get involved, despite the Amish reluctance to trust government entities. A female member of the gang is abducted, and the investigation goes into high gear.

Most fiction about the Amish focuses on one of two things: either how romantic their “Plain” life is, or how uncooperative they are with “English” authority. Gaus wisely steers down the middle, matter-of-factly relating ups and downs of Amish life, and points to many years of European persecution as the reason for their attitude.

A Prayer for the Night (210 pages, softcover) costs $12.95 from Ohio University Press. P.L. Gaus is a chemistry professor at the College of Wooster.

Akron Beacon Journal
May 14, 2006