Twenty-six year old Leah Kurtz has seen quite a bit of sorrow in her life – her sister died young, her fiancé ran off, and now her best friend Barbara is dying.  Barbara’s dying wish is that Leah adopt her one-month-old baby Becca.  Sam, Barbara’s husband and Becca’s father, travels about with a group of the community’s men doing construction.

Dr. Mark Morelli, molecular biology geneticist and pediatrician, has moved to Maplecreek to study natal accelerated aging (NAA).  NAA is a rare genetic disease which ages the body seven times faster than normal, causing young children to have bodies of a 70 or 80 year old.  The Amish tendency to intermarry makes their community the perfect place to study genetic diseases.  Dr. Morelli is hoping to isolate the gene and cure NAA.

Mark hires Leah to be his community liaison to the Amish.  She can introduce him to the three families whose children have NAA and can provide him the families’ history.  Leah is impressed by Mark’s bedside manner and by the fact he doesn’t see the children as experiments.  Mark is taken by Leah’s intelligence and caring manner.  As the two work closely together they begin to have feelings for each other.

At the same time strange things begin to happen in the community.  Those involved in the accidents have amnesia about what happened.  For example the buggy of one of the families whose child has NAA is overturned, yet no one remembers what happened.  A couple of the Amish kids disappear, which the sheriff just blows off as kids taking off on their rumspringa (running around time before committing to the Amish way).  After Leah’s daughter Becca is switched with another child, Mark and Leah fear someone is out to hurt the Amish.

The romance between Mark and Leah is unusual for a romantic suspense book.  Since she’s Amish, there are many restrictions on what “romance” can mean for the two.  Obviously the physical side of a relationship is not fully indulged.  Kissing and hand holding is about it.  But the biggest constraint is that she is Amish and he is English (their word for the non-Amish).  As they are forbidden to be together, the two find themselves caught between the two worlds.

Dark Angel starts out will a lot of back story before the mystery really gets going.  In the cases of the Amish community’s rules and of the basic genetics, the extra back story is needed.  The other areas, such as documentation details of Mark’s study or Becca’s every feeding, detracted from the momentum of the story.  Once the strange occurrences begin to happen, suspects abound.  Leah assumes that every English person Mark interacts with has a motive.  In the end, the answer is obvious.

The most interesting parts of Dark Angel are the explanations of the Amish way of life.  It is fascinating to learn more about how that community lives.

--Terry Lawrence