The
Amish Clockmaker
Mindy
Starns Clark and Susan Meissner
Harvest
House Publishers, Feb 1 2015, $13.99
ISBN: 9780736957380
In
Lancaster County, as construction to expand Zook's Feed and Tack is about to
begin, proprietor Matthew Zook reflects back to the 1950s when his Grossdaedi
established the successful store that decades later his Daed almost
bankrupt. However, a legal dispute with
the Starbrite owners of the nearby under construction hotel arises. Their lawyer Purcell insists the Raber and Sons Clockmakers land that Zook’s
Grossdaedi bought from the Raber matriarch six decades did not include this
acre as she did not own that piece; her son Clayton did. They plan to find and buy the land from
him. .
In
1955 facially scarred with a severe limp Clayton fell in love with his next
door neighbor Miriam, but she treated him like a friend. Not long after his father died, when she
became pregnant out of wedlock, he married her though she carried someone
else’s baby. She lost the child and
behaved weirdly until she fell from a cliff.
Though there was a lack of evidence his Amish community believed Clayton
pushed his wife so treated him as a pariah until he left never to be seen again. Matthew plans to prove Clayton’s innocence,
find the man and obtain his signature.
The
third Men of Lancaster County drama (see The Amish Groom and The Amish Blacksmith) is a fantastic entry in a
fabulous series. The storyline consists
of three tremendous subplots: a short look at Matthew; his family and his
expansion plan; an extended 1950s glimpse into Clayton and the Raber family;
and a short present day Matthew cold case search for a self-exiled man
excommunicated by family and neighbors six decades ago.
Harriet
Klausner
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