The Amish Wife
Gregg Olsen
The #1 New York Times and Amazon Charts bestselling author Gregg Olsen solves a murder among the Amish and reveals the conspiracy to keep it a secret in a heartbreaking and horrifying true-crime story. In 1977, in an Ohio Amish community, pregnant wife and mother Ida Stutzman perished during a barn fire. The coroner’s natural causes. more
387 pages, Kindle Edition
First published Thomas & Mercer
3.53
Rating
10040
Ratings
703
Reviews
Gregg Olsen
106 books 5477 followers
Throughout his career, Gregg Olsen has demonstrated an ability to create a detailed narrative that offers readers fascinating insights into the lives of people caught in extraordinary circumstances.A #1 New York Times bestselling author, Olsen has written ten nonfiction books, ten novels, and contributed a short story to a collection edited by Lee Child.
The award-winning author has been a guest on dozens of national and local television shows, including educational programs for the History Channel, Learning Channel, and Discovery Channel. He has also appeared on Good Morning America, The Early Show, The Today Show, FOX News; CNN, Anderson Cooper 360, MSNBC, Entertainment Tonight, CBS 48 Hours, Oxygen’s Snapped, Court TV’s Crier Live, Inside Edition, Extra, Access Hollywood, and A&E’s Biography.
In addition to television and radio appearances, the award-winning author has been featured in Redbook, USA Today, People, Salon magazine, Seattle Times, Los Angeles Times and the New York Post.
The Deep Dark was named Idaho Book of the Year by the ILA and Starvation Heights was honored by Washington’s Secretary of State for the book’s contribution to Washington state history and culture.
Olsen, a Seattle native, lives in Olalla, Washington with his wife and Suri (a mini dachshund so spoiled she wears a sweater).
Community reviews
Hearsay and speculation about a crime that really isn't much of a mystery. It feels like this book was written to HEAVILY promote the authors first book. I'd rather dig my eyes out with crochet hooks than read this again. more
Wow. What a tragic story of Ida and Danny's lives. I only gave this 3 stars because I got confused throughout with all of the names and similar families and also because I felt I should have read Abandoned Prayers beforehand to gathering more insight on Eli. Although, I probably won't read it after learning the horrible things he did to his young son Danny through this book. Overall, it was a great read, just really sad and tragic. more
SO BORINGIf you want to know how Ida was murdered, just go to the last 3 pages of the book. Throughout the rest of the book Mr. Olson yammers on and on and on and on, going off on tangents and repeating himself endlessly . After seriously trying to read the book for the first 40%, I finally just started skipping huge sections, and ultimately just skipped to the end- the only interesting part of the book. I can't believe I wasted so much time hoping the narrative would get better. more
The phrases "self-serving" and "self-centered" spring to mind. more
The Amish Wife investigates the death of a young Amish woman and the husband who maybe got away with her murder. Intense investigation into her death and the subsequent history of the husband make for interesting reading. more
Extremely Sad True Crime Story Gregg Olsen has written a conclusion to his previous book Abandoned Prayers that will rip your heart out. ***SERIOUS TRIGGER WARNINGOlsen is very thorough but also able to convey the personality of the people he is interviewing. In this case, we are talking about the Schwarzentrubber Amish, a conservative Old Order group mostly in Ohio. The Amish Wife details another side of the Amish than that which has been very popular in books. There are quite a few authors who are on the bestseller lists with serial love stories set in various places in Amish country. more
DNF. I really tried to get into this true crime story. Its well written. As I read to 1\3 of it I lost interest. In cold blood is my very first crime story I've read. more
Gregg Olsen does not tell Ida’s story in a proper manner. His narrative style is very self centered, and he seems to harass this community for his own personal gain. Olsen’s mentions of visiting Dahmers childhood home and writing letters to Bundy on death row show that he’s everything wrong with true crime culture. He is mentioning these side stories in an attempt to inflate his ego, and it’s completely disgusting and unnecessary in this story about an Amish woman’s murder. Wouldn’t recommend to anyone. more
This is my second Gregg Olsen read of 2023 (If You Tell was the first)and both were from his true crime shelf. Olsen writes in a way that makes a reader feel that their sitting right beside him-collecting all the evidence and listening to him re-interview many of the Amish people he had first encountered in Abandoned Prayers. Honestly, I wanted more about Ida, the victim and I felt as true crime tends to do we get more about her potential murderer. But again, that's just my preference as a reader. Writers with publishers must fill a different bracket. more
Conspiracy, lies and coverups galoreI've always had an "unsettling" feeling since I read about Eli and Ida Stutzman years ago. Gregg Olsen felt it too. After many years Gregg heads back to Amish Country to do some more investigating. He sees Daniel Gingerich, Ida'a brother, and they talk about Gregg's suspicions regarding the night Ida met her demise in the barn fire. This book takes you through his investigation and is brilliantly documented by Olsen. more
Not my favoriteThis is not my favorite book from this author. I felt it was too long and drawn out. It took me a while to get through it. more
I did not enjoy this book. I felt like it was a lot of rambling and did not present a cohesive digestible narrative. Many sentences were long and confusing and descriptions of characters were jumbled. The Amish community was portrayed in a very bad light. more
To quote Stefan from early 2010s SNL culture, "This book has everything". Amish ✅Arson ✅Murder ✅Conspiracies ✅Scandalous gay affairs ✅As ridiculous as that all sounds, mind you, this is a true crime story. Even more so, it's true crime set primarily in the late 1970s in Northeast Ohio (Wooster-area primarily). Growing up in Ohio, I enjoyed the geography of it all and understood the feeling of the small town culture the author was trying to convey. The author, Gregg Olson, treated this book as a sequel of sorts to his book Abandoned Prayers (haven't nor will read). more
Too Much of a Good Thing. Gregg Olsen is an outstanding writer. His dialogue, character development, and narrative are natural and easy to follow. Moreover he is an excellent detective who seems to possess both the patience and dedication to find answers even if the endeavor takes ages. To boot, I get the feeling he is a really nice guy and a good human being. more
2. 5 starsI chose this book as my December Kindle First Read, because nothing else appealed to me. I do like crime stories from time to time, so it wasn't a hard decision. But this book was all over the place. The first half to two-thirds of the book were so full of asides, descriptions of Olsen's rental cars and hotel rooms, unrelated commentary (including references to Weird Al Yankovic and Schitt's Creek), bad coffee, weather. more
Some parts i. really liked, some parts did not keep my attention. Thank you to netgalley for letting me read this e arc in exchange for an honest opinion. more
I received a hardcover copy The Amish Wife by Gregg Olsen in the mail. I'm not certain if it was directly from the publisher Thomas & Mercer or from the publicist Jennifer Musico, who has sent me quite a number of e-books. The Amish Wife was about a real life monster. The Amish Wife states that the Amish believe that saying negative things about someone reflects poorly on the speaker. This belief is probably why Amish were unwilling to say things they knew about killer Eli Stutzman. more
The title “The Amish Wife” almost evokes the currently popular literary genre Amish romance (chaste “bonnet rippers” that are written for denomination-curious Christian evangelical women), but the real story of this Amish woman is far more tragic and gruesome. Back in 1989, Gregg Olsen first explored the murder of a little boy abandoned in a field, which led back to the death of a pregnant Amish woman in a barn fire (but not adjudged to be foul play) and produced his debut book “Answered Prayers. ” Olsen did his best to investigate the story of “Little Boy Blue” at the time and his very graphic non-fiction book determined even then that psychopathic Eli Stutzman murdered his son and got away with it. Olsen had encountered numerous coverups and roadblocks 30 years ago and was prompted to revisit what happened to Stutzman’s pregnant wife when her brother, still a member of one of the strictest Amish sects, contacted him again with a box of letters. I love Gregg’s true crime style — he really should turn his updated books into podcasts. more
2. 5 DNF after 40%. I enjoyed the beginning. The frequent jumping around and self talk from the author drove me to boredom. I was interested in knowing what really happened so I did my own research on Eli instead. more
There is a case here in my home state of Indiana that came to mind quite often while reading Gregg Olsen's "The Amish Wife. " It involves two young teenagers, Abby and Liberty, who were murdered on the outskirts of town while spending an unseasonably warm winter day hiking on a defined trail. While there has been an arrest in the case (results still undetermined), the entire case has been chaotic and bungled from point one. Time and again, it has appeared to be a case that appears to have facts unspoken and secrets untold. In "The Amish Wife," Olsen revisits a case he wrote about in Abandoned Prayers in which a young boy was found dead in a town on Christmas Eve in a small Nebraska town. more
1. If I had known this was a sequel, I would not have started with this book, I was missing so much context2. I always find it interesting in documentaries or true crime content when the content creator just blabs about other people's business. Like, I know that's the medium, but it's so jarring to read things like "this person told me to keep this secret," but you're telling everyone. 😩3. more
So, I didn't read 'Abandoned Prays' before picking this up, but that didn't diminish this book at all. Pertinent information was all explained for this book. I haven't liked most of Gregg's books up to now but I keep trying because I love true crime. This book was a pleasant surprise for me as I thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish. It had mystery, intrigue, puzzles, and I loved Greer's point of view. more
This was an interesting story, but as the author never made any new discoveries in the case and the murderer is deceased, it was really just him revisiting a cold case with no hope of a solution. I read it because I remember the story of “Little Boy Blue” when it happened and didn’t know how the story turned out. . more
This was such a well researched true crime. I read it not realizing that this is Gregg Olsen's second book on this murder. You don't have to read the first one to make sense of what his further research has come up with. I am now reading the first book. This is a haunting story of the cover-up of an Amish woman's murder. more
One man's determination to uncover the truthAlthough this solves a crime in which all acting parties are deceased, it really matters. The focus is finding the truth about the fateful night of the barn fire and the real cause of Ida's death. But the book actually chronicles the life of Eli, the Amish man behind a wall of hurt and lies. Olsen takes you into the Amish community to see their routines, and he delves into the personalities of the people present in Ida's life at the time of her death. This book contains a dearth of information and is like a diary of the research involved to obtain this information. more
Could Not Put it DownFascinating reading. Lies and deception, chasing a thirty year old murder to find the simple justice of truth. The author treats the Amish with great respect while seeking his way through the mystery of of both their culture and a serial killer's life. Not even the whys to but the fact that certain professional persons who should have and could have prevented deaths hid the truth for years. This author earned himself a new reader. more
Secrets Never LastThis was a fascinating book of details, repeated over and over and over. For decades. Lies that everyone knew but nobody cared to be involved. I had a hard time after the first half of the book reading the repeat of the repeat. It could have been organized better . more