In the Land of Milk and Honey

Elizabeth Harris Mystery #2

by Jane Jensen

With its peaceful, hardworking Amish population, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, is a rural paradise. But former NYPD homicide detective Elizabeth Harris knows that evil lurks there—it’s just easier to hide...
 
By solving the murders of two local girls, Elizabeth has gained some trust in the Amish community. So, she’s the first person its members turn to when a fast and fatal illness takes hold, though many believe that the sickness stems from a hexerei—a curse placed by a practitioner of old-world folk magic. Elizabeth doesn’t believe in curses, and when an entire Amish family is found dead, she begins to suspect something far more sinister...
 
As the CDC is called in to investigate, customers of a Philadelphia farmers market selling Amish raw milk start dying. Amid rapidly escalating panic, Elizabeth must peel away layers of superstition and fear to save the livelihood—and lives—of an entire community. Because what has happened isn’t an accident of nature or an act of God, it’s the handiwork of someone who has only just begun to kill...

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Audiobook, Amish, Mystery Thriller, Crime, Cozy Mystery

304 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2016

About the author

Jane Jensen is the game designer of the popular and critically acclaimed Gabriel Knight adventure games and author of the novels Judgement Day and Dante's Equation.
Jane Jensen was born Jane Elizabeth Smith, the youngest of seven children. She received a BA in Computer Science from Anderson University in Indiana and worked as a systems programmer for Hewlett-Packard. Her love of both computers and creative writing eventually led her to the computer gaming industry and Sierra Online where she worked as a writer on Police Quest III: The Kindred and EcoQuest: The Search for Cetus. After co-designing King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow with veteran game designer Roberta Williams, Jensen designed her first solo game: Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers, which was released in 1993. The dark, supernatural mystery was a departure for Sierra but the game was enthusiastically received, with the strength of Jensen's writing, along with the game's horror and gothic sensibilities coming in for particular praise from the gaming press and earning the title Computer Gaming World's "Adventure Game of the Year" title.
Jensen followed up Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers with two sequels: The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery in 1995 and Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned in 1999. Somewhat unusually for an adventure game series, each Gabriel Knight title was produced in an entirely different format to the others. Whereas the original was a traditional 2D animated game, the sequels were realised through full motion video and a custom built 3D engine, respectively. Despite further acclaim for Jensen's design in both cases (The Beast Within was Computer Gaming World's "Game of the Year"), the large expenses associated with making the sequels, coupled with the declining marketability of adventure games (especially within Sierra) meant that a fourth in the series was not commissioned.
In 1996, Jensen published a novelization of the first Gabriel Knight game. A second Gabriel Knight novelization followed in 1998. In 1999, Jensen published her first non-adapted novel, Millennium Rising (later retitled Judgment Day). Her fourth book, Dante's Equation was published in 2003. Dante's Equation was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award.
Jensen has been involved in designing casual online games at Oberon Media, of which she is a co-founder. Her work in the Hidden Object/light adventure category can partially be credited with moving casual games in the direction of full adventure games in puzzle and story sophistication. Some of her more notable recent hits include Deadtime Stories (2009) and Dying for Daylight (2010). After leaving Oberon in 2011, she briefly worked at Zynga.
Jensen's most recent full adventure game was called Gray Matter, which was developed by Wizarbox and published by dtp entertainment in 2010. On April 2, 2008 the game, originally intended to be developed by Hungarian software house Tonuzaba, switched to another developer, French company Wizarbox: as a result, the tentative release was changed and shifted to 2010.
Jane Jensen owns a farm in Pennsylvania where she lives with her husband, composer Robert Holmes, who composed the music for the Gabriel Knight series and for Gray Matter. On April 5, 2012, the couple announced the formation of Pinkerton Road, a new game development studio to be headquartered on their Lancaster, Pennsylvania farm. The studio will use a Community Supported Gaming (CSG) model to give subscribers direct access to the games they produce, similar to Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) where small farms provide consumers with regular produce deliveries. With this announcement, a Kickstarter campaign was launched to raise funds for the studio's first year of game development.
Jensen is also a story consultant on Phoenix Online Studios' adventure game Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller.

Reviews

[Regan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is by far one of the best series that's come out this year. Book 2 was even better than book 1, Kingdom Come. Hopefully it won't be too long of a wait for book 3 to come out. Jensen writes such great characters and builds the mystery with skill.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elizabeth is the first person the Amish look to when a fast and fatal illness starts killing Amish families and cows. She finds that the cows have been poisoned and has to think fast to find the killer. Her romance with an ex-Amish man continues with several stains along the way.

[Tracey · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the 2nd book in the series. I enjoyed the different angle of this series; 'English' or outsider Detective Elizabeth Harris deals with crimes committed against or within the local Amish communities in Pennsylvania.

The plot was good but I found the characters and their relationships to one another a little wooden and very irregular at times. One case in particular was the attraction of Dr. Glen Turner from the CDC, to Elizabeth. His repeated attempts to get her to date him and go back to DC to live and work was frankly unbelievable. This was going on in the midst of working a serial killer case and after having only known one another through the case for a very short time. This was not needed for the story and detracted from it. For this reason the book only rates 2 stars. Still, I will give the next book a try before dismissing this series.

[Silvara Wilde · Rating 4 out of 5]

Check out my other reviews, discussions and link ups at Fantasy of the Silver Dragon.

I received this book for free from Berkley Prime Crime in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

I loved the mystery in this. And I loved the Amish characters too. It made perfect sense that some of them were stubborn, and still drinking the milk even though they knew some in their community had died because of doing that. THEIR cow(s) weren't looking or acting sick, so why should they waste food?

We didn't see much of Ezra's family in this, but we did get to interact with Katie's. As well as meet new characters, Amish and English both. There are descriptions of dead people, adults and children in the book. Nothing graphic, things like ages, what color their hair was, how the bodies were found and what they were wearing. A few gross bits like the mucus and such that showed the cows were sick. But if you're sensitive to deaths of children, there were a lot of them killed in this book.

There was almost a love triangle, except that Elizabeth wasn't interested in anyone but Ezra. There was also a bit of angst as Ezra worked through some issues of his own, and I was afraid for a bit that he was going to end up breaking up with Elizabeth.

I guessed who the killer was early on, but dismissed the person because it didn't make sense at the time. And by "guessed" it was more a "oh look, someone I didn't meet last book, it must be them!" not actually seriously as there are a number of new people in the book. It made a lot of sense that it was that person though, once the reveal happened.

I liked getting to know more about the Amish, and how they lived and worked. Most of the book is crime scene detective work, which I also love, but there were enough sub-plots to make everything feel fleshed out. Once I started reading, I couldn't put the book down. I can't wait to see what's in store for the next book! If you haven't read this series yet, you need to!

This review was originally posted on Fantasy of the Silver Dragon

[Patrizia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Decisamente mi piacciono i gialli ambientati nelle comunità Amish... Per fortuna, non sono la sola e in giro ci sono vari libri che possono soddisfare la mia necessità.
Per quanto riguarda questo volume, la storia gialla è interessante e avevo scartato ben presto il colpevole giusto. In più prosegue la storia d'amore della protagonista, quindi anche la lettrice di romance che c'è in me è rimasta contenta. Spero che ci saranno altri libri in questa serie.

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book. Not very often do I pick up murder mysteries revolving around an Amish setting. It was different than most fluffy quick-reads. I thought it was cool how there was a narrative in the perspective of the culprit. I will probably read some more books in this series.

I received this book for free through Goodreads Giveaways. Thank you.

[Timothy McCluskey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Somewhat interesting story but characters lack depth and too many trite references - was very disappointed

[Rebecca · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was more interesting than the first book so I enjoyed it a bit more. However, it still sucked overall. Every man that the detective meets is immediately attracted to her. She says she doesn't care but then keeps talking about her looks, lol. But what bothered me the most was how the reader knew stuff before the main character did. I heard it on Audible so maybe it was more obvious in the printed version, but it was weird and confusing how it shifted from the detective's perspective to then other characters. The first book wasn't like that, so that's why it threw me off.

The mystery itself was actually quite good. I didn't like though that animals died. Ugh! I know it needed to happen for the story but still, I couldn't help but feel bad when I read about them dying. 😕

The romance is still bad, lol. It feels forced and then the attempted love triangle with the CDC doctor and then for some reason, the other detective who is interested, it all just seemed forced.

Audio wise, the accents were terrible and I truly wish the narrator redid those parts in her natural voice. I understand that not everyone can do different accents. I'd rather the narrator just read them normally than make the attempt and then butcher it. It really made the reading experience less enjoyable. Like, the Indian medical doctor sounded like all the Amish characters. Then she tried to do a "Hispanic" accent for the detective that is attracted to the main character for a hot minute. Was it supposed to be a Mexican accent or something? It was REALLY bad and it lowered my opinion of the book even further. Hence, one star.

[patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Started this one late at night and had to force myself to go to bed at 0145 AM. Elizabeth Harris is now living with Ezra as he has left the Amish. After one child dies the department doesn't want to call in the CDC. Then an entire family is found dead. Is it a virus? Bacteria? Or something more sinister. But at that point the CDC is called in. To complicate Elizabeth's life the CDC doctor is attracted to her. They work together to discover what is going on as this epidemic spreads to Philadelphia, but is mostly contracted by the Amish in Lancastor county. Jane Jensen writes a spell binding tale of murder, love, and life among the Amish. I could not put In The Land Of Milk And Honey down.

[Nikki P. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a really fun read. It has a lot of elements of a story that can hold one’s attention: mysterious illnesses, potential foul play, CDC involvement, the Amish and a solid female defective character. This book did exactly what I hoped it would - keep me turning the pages and saying: ok, just a few more pages and then I’ll go to bed. The writing is fine but not notable and the characters were a tad bit one note. Still I enjoyed it and I appreciate the research she must have done on the Amish in order to write this story. It was a good window into a community I know nothing about. I recommend for a fun mystery read!

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elizabeth Harris has settled into life with her boyfriend, Ezra. Suddenly a large Amish family is found dead. At first, the flu is suspected but for seven people to die at the same time? Not likely. Elizabeth is selected to look into the problem and deal with the panic which ensues when it is discovered that the family has died from drinking raw milk. The Amish farmers sell their milk to dairies in the area and to families of "English" who choose to drink milk that is not processed. When more and more deaths occur, the state steps in and Elizabeth steps up her search. This was an excellent book. I certainly hope Ms. Jensen continues this series. It is a great one!!

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was an easy read. When I picked it up from the library, I didn't realize it was a book in a series, so I'll have to go back and read the first. The mystery kept me guessing throughout the book, and the ending was great. Initially I picked up the book because of the Amish topic (I love Amish literature!). This book wasn't the typical Amish book that I read because it really didn't have a lot of their beliefs come out, it featured ex-Amish (and happy about it), and the "watcher" was a foul character when it had the "watcher's" perspective. Overall, it's a good read.

[Sher (in H-Town) · Rating 4 out of 5]

A speedy listen.. police procedural in Amish country PA. Number two in a series but works as a standalone. I am struggling to buy into the romance between elizabeth and Ezra… it just isn’t developed well.

Otherwise this was a quick listen about a not terribly complicated mystery.

Other reviews talk about the irritation with the cdc case lead… I found him kind of a jerk but not in a way that totally made the book seem worthless. But sure that attempt at romantic harassment didnt add anything to the story.

3.5. Out of 5

[Sandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Elizabeth a detective in an Amish community is looking for the source of a strange illness that has caused several Amish families to die. The CDC becomes involved and determine its being transmitted by unpasteurized milk. However its not the farmers fault; its being introduced thru their cows by a poison plant that someone is feeding the cows. There is a serial killer lose targeting Amish families.

[Tricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this little mystery. While it is number two in a series, I feel it could completely stand alone. I haven't read the first story and while there is probably some background information about Elizabeth, I didn't feel like there was information I had to have to enjoy this book. I didn't see the little twist at the end and I could see reading more from this series.

[Cristin Grenier · Rating 5 out of 5]

This being the second book in the Detective Harris series, it was as great as the first. I am not sure what drew me into this series based in the Amish Country in Pennsylvania, but I am sure glad I decided to read them. Jensen keeps you guessing until the end. Well worth the read.

[Teri Pre · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you enjoy Linda Castillo's Kate Burkholder series, give this series a try. It's not quite as good as Jensen hits a few wrong notes, but overall, the series has a lot of potential. I'm looking forward to future books.

[Chrystal · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was interested in the plot and would like to have finished reading the book. However, by chapter 14, it was so full of cursing, (G-D-, S-, FU-, etc...) that I decided that as a Christian I just couldn’t listen any longer.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the plot and the characters. The author’s knowledge of the Amish lifestyle keeps the story realistic. I had never heard of milk poisoning or its existence in our history. I enjoyed the book. Will read the first one, now.

[Emi Lundberg · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

I wasn’t like personally literarily offended by anything it just read like self insert fan fiction with all of the offhand mentions of how hot the protagonist was. The Amish theme was interesting maybe but also from my understanding the series is Amish themed so I’m a little sus

[Kimberly DuBois · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well this was Amish fiction like nothing I’ve ever read! Someone was poisoning Amish cows and when the families drank the raw milk, mass murders were occurring. Detective Elizabeth Harris and the CDC are on the case! It was a good read.

[Rhosyn Goodfellow · Rating 4 out of 5]

The mystery is engaging and the characters are great, but the switching back and forth between first and third person doesn't flow well at all.

[Gordon Lindstrom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent story I enjoy the backstory of amish life. However, I felt the profanity in the book did not add anything to the story line

[Amisth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall I liked this book, but it left me a little bit disappointed. Kingdom Come, the first book in the series, was definitely better, even with its rushed love story. The events unfold a year later after Elizabeth Harris solved the case about a dead Amish girl, and our main heroine once again had to deal with the incident in the Amish community. Now a whole family was found dead in their home and the reason seems to be a disease, though rare illness can kill such a big family overnight... Though I have no claims regarding the investigation itself, I have some issues about how the story was told. The first book was told from the first person narrative, and the second follows in its steps, but on rare occasions the author is shifting to a third person narrative. If the author wanted to show different points of view of other characters, other scenes where the main character was not present, why didn't she use the third person narrative all the way from the first book? The whole point of the first person narrative is that you see all events from the eyes of the main character, you learn how he or she thinks and reacts, you dicover things together with them. It's especially important in a detective story. And though this book is still a page-turner, and I read it pretty fast, I disliked two major points. The first of them I already mentioned, you shouldn't let the audience have more knowledge than the protagonist in these kinds of stories, it ruins the suspence. The second major point is the lack of exposition. While Kingdom Come presented a ton of interesting facts about Amish communities, I didn't learn much about them from this one, except one particular lead that Harris followed, but it was only a small episode. As for minor complaints... For detective fiction there are too much romance and relationship issues involved. Mainly with Ezra. What's worse, it comes merely as an addition to the main plot and everything is resolved too quickly. Also Harris seems to be a real heartbreaker, almost every handsome guy has to make a move at her and it quickly becomes irritating (I thought she didn't care about those things, as was mentioned in Kingdom Come?). I didn't really like the ending too. I got the main idea, but the explanations were lacking and not thorough. I wanted to know more about the killer's personality and motives.

[Kourtney Schone · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one started out slow for me, but I quickly started l loving it as much as I loved the first in the series. It was a very unique take on murder and I loved it. I hope there are more to come!

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't like it as much as the first book. I found it to drag on.

[Mary Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first in this series was good. This one was better. The characters and storyline are stronger. Look forward to the next one.

[John Machata · Rating 3 out of 5]

Audio ruined this one for me. Reader unable to capture the Amish or an East Indian English variant.
Had to stop listening.

[Kristen Landon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like this series. I hope Jane Jensen has more planned!

[JoAnn · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of those books that does not give up the secret! Very good mystery!