The Old Buzzard Had It Coming

Alafair Tucker #1

by Donis Casey

With an introduction by Donis Casey.
Alafair Tucker is a strong woman, the core of family life on a farm in Oklahoma where the back-breaking work and daily logistics of caring for her husband Shaw, their nine children, and being neighborly requires hard muscle and a clear head. She's also a woman of strong opinions, and it is her opinion that her neighbor, Harley Day, is a drunkard and a reprobate. So, when Harley's body is discovered frozen in a snowdrift one January day in 1912, she isn't surprised that his long-suffering family isn't, if not actually celebrating, much grieving.
When Alafair helps Harley's wife prepare the body for burial, she discovers that Harley's demise was anything but natural - there is a bullet lodged behind his ear. Alafair is concerned when she hears that Harley's son, John Lee, is the prime suspect in his father's murder, for Alafair's seventeen-year-old daughter Phoebe is in love with the boy. At first, Alafair's only fear is that Phoebe is in for a broken heart, but as she begins to unravel the events that led to Harley's death, she discovers that Phoebe might be more than just John Lee's she may be his accomplice in murder.

Genres: Mystery, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical Mystery, Historical, Crime, Audiobook

228 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 1, 2005

About the author

DONIS CASEY was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma. A third generation Oklahoman, she and her siblings grew up among their aunts and uncles, cousins, grandparents and great-grandparents on farms and in small towns, where they learned the love of family and independent spirit that characterizes the population of that pioneering state. Donis graduated from the University of Tulsa with a degree in English, and earned a Master’s degree in Library Science from Oklahoma University. After teaching school for a short time, she enjoyed a career as an academic librarian, working for many years at the University of Oklahoma and at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona.

Donis left academia in 1988 to start a Scottish import gift shop in downtown Tempe. After more than a decade as an entrepreneur, she decided to devote herself full-time to writing. The Old Buzzard Had It Coming is her first book. For the past twenty years, Donis has lived in Tempe, AZ, with her husband.

Reviews

[♥ Sandi ❣ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

This is the first book of a 10 book series. It takes place in the Oklahoma back hills in the early 1900's. The base family in this series is the Tucker family - Shaw, Alafair and their nine children. As in all hills and hollers there is many kinfolk related to the Tuckers. However one other family - unrelated - is the Day family. Unrelated currently - but Phoebe Tucker and John Lee Day are courting.

The plot of this story is the death of John Lee's father Harley Day. How he died, who killed him, who will be taking the blame and how this all involves the Tucker family. Other than Alafair playing detective in the crime.

This is just a feel good series, a light read, and a distraction from heavier books. Book number two is Hornswoggled.

[Shirley Schwartz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I tried this book simply because I loved the title. This is the first book in the Alafair Tucker mystery series. And what a protagonist Alafair is. She's a 35 year old mother of nine children! The setting is 1912 Boynton, Oklahoma. Alafair and her husband Shaw are farmers in the thriving town of Boynton when we meet her. She rules her large household with a firm, but fair hand. Everyone in the Tucker family pitches in to help in the never-ending job of raising such a large family. When a drunken obnoxious neighbour is found frozen to death in the snow, Alaifair finds herself drawn into to trying to figure out what happened to the old buzzard. His name was Harley Day and he was a vicious, mean man who no one will mourn, least of all is long-suffering family. Alaifair discovers that her 17 year old daughter Phoebe is sweet on young John Lee Day. The setting and the plot delineations are spot-on with the time frame and with the place of rural Oklahoma. I found the mystery fun, different and I absolutely lovely feisty Alafair. We even get early 20th century recipes at the end. This book was a whole load of fun.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not quite a 4 star listen as it dragged on a bit, but close enough. I had some issues with timing a couple of times, but that was fairly minor compared to the setting. The time is 1912, the heroine a mother of most of a dozen, Alafair, & the mystery is figuring out who killed a man that everyone thought better off dead, anyway. With so many willing & able, the mystery winds around opportunity & who had the means.

The characters were well done, but what really grabbed me was the setting & how well it was handled. A common complaint of mine is that authors don't understand farm life, but Casey is an exception. In this time before the automobile was common, she handles transportation quite well. She also gives a pretty good feel for the amount of labor that was involved in keeping a home. It reminded me very much of Aunt Affie's, an old family friend who was of my grandparents' age who had a farm in the boonies. My mother used to drive a team of horses while helping Uncle Kendall. (There's a picture of her driving them while standing on their rumps around somewhere.)

Best of all, the end of the book has a bunch of recipes, all of which were quite authentic sounding to me. Since I listened to them, I can't swear to it, but the cobbler & cornbread recipes sure sounded just like those I make based on recipes from Mom & my grandmothers. I only keep bacon grease in my drippings jar & keep it refrigerated as Mom taught me. (The dogs get the rest on their kibble.)

Since everything seemed so real, I wondered how much of this was based on reality. Apparently it's a common question & Casey has answered it to some extent on her website here:
http://www.doniscasey.com/?page_id=530

When I started this book, I thought I'd really want to read the next & soon. Unfortunately, it dragged on a bit too long, so I'm no longer in a rush, but think I will get back to the series at some point. I'd certainly recommend reading at least this one. There's no sex, cussing, & only a little bit of violence, so it should be suitable for anyone.

[Faith · Rating 2 out of 5]

I should know better than to try to read a cozy mystery. They are not my cup of luke warm tea. Although this is a short book, it felt endless. If I had been reading this book, rather than listening to the audio book, I would have just skipped to the end to see who killed the old buzzard. The title was the best part of the book and I stupidly thought that it might have more grit than it did. Instead I got discussions of domestic details, like warming innards, laundry and peach cobbler recipes and the names of way too many children. I deducted one star from my rating due to the epilogue, which is sappier than anyone should have to endure and also includes recipes. I won't be continuing with the series, although the narrator of the audio book wasn't bad.

[Ivonne Rovira · Rating 2 out of 5]

The death of a cruel and drunken ne'er-do-well opens Donis Casey's The Old Buzzard Had It Coming. No one's sorry when Harley Day is found dead in a snow drift -- not his neighbors, not the sheriff, not the town folk of Boynton, Oklahoma, and especially not the wife he beat and the 19-year-old son he bullied and who had to bear the brunt of the farm work his inebriate father neglected. However, when neighbor Alafair Tucker discovers a tiny bullet hole adjacent to Day's ear, the case becomes a murder investigation.

Day's son, John Lee Day, goes missing soon after the grisly discovery, drawing suspicion on himself. Alafair likes the boy and can't bring herself to believe him a murderer -- even of a blackguard like Harley Day. But she redoubles her effort to prove John Lee innocent when she discovers that her daughter, 17-year-old Phoebe Tucker, and John Lee have long been in love and that her daughter knows more about Harley Day's death than she's telling.

Donis, a Tulsa native, has written that she came up with the idea of a mystery set in 1912 Oklahoma while investigating her own pioneer ancestors. Donis has clearly done her homework into Oklahoma, lacing the tale with details of farm life in an Oklahoma only recently minted as a state: the dire cold, the loneliness, the backbreaking and unrelenting work. She also evokes the first stirrings of the industrialization that would convert a country that was 90 percent rural into an industrialized powerhouse of a modern nation when eldest daughter Martha takes up the new field of secretarial work -- much to her grandparents' horror! The historical detail, beautifully rendered, brings rough-and-tumble Oklahoma, which had only gained statehood in 1906, to life.

However, Donis falters in The Old Buzzard Had It Coming when it comes to spinning a compelling mystery. From the first, the reader knows Alafair, unsophisticated and barely educated by our standards, will succeed where Sheriff Scott Tucker (a cousin by marriage) does not and will unmask the real killer and allow the two lovebirds to proceed into their lives together. That's what you expect from a cozy, whether written by Agatha Christie and set in 1930s St. Mary Meade or by anyone else and set at any time. No crime -- pardon the pun -- in that. However, Donis' debut novel in the Alafair Tucker series doesn't provide any suspense about anything else, either. Alafair simply ambles into and out of Boynton in a rather ham-fisted investigation. Yes, you're mildly curious about who plugged the old buzzard who most assuredly did have it coming to him, but you won't be staying up late into the night, eager to find out. The Old Buzzard Had It Coming isn't a bad book; at $2.99, I certainly felt I'd gotten my money's worth from the Kindle Edition. However, I'm not sure it's good enough to bother with the sequel, Hornswoggled -- even though the Kindle Edition is priced at just $4.99 -- unless I run out of favorite authors to tide me over.

[Jan Mc · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this story and enjoyed the homespun details of 1912 Oklahoma smalltown life. Alafair Tucker is a little too good to be true, but the mystery was a good one. I read one of the latter books in the series a few years ago and was glad to start over with this one. I don't read a lot of cozy mysteries but this time period interests me. Lots of characters but Casey made it easy to keep track of them. The audiobook was narrated by Pam Ward, who did a super job with the accents.

[Leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cosy-ish murder mystery in Oklahoma…

Harley Day beats his wife, terrorises his children, fights with his neighbours and has fallen out with his relations, so when he turns up dead the general feeling in the little town of Boynton and the surrounding farming community is that the old buzzard sure had it coming! Alafair Tucker’s husband owns the neighbouring farm to the Days’, but Alafair wouldn’t have been too much interested in Harley’s death except that she has found out that her daughter, Phoebe, has been sneaking over to visit Harley’s son, John Lee, and the two youngsters appear to be in love. So when John Lee becomes the chief suspect, Alafair wants to know the truth – did he do it?

Set in the early 1900s in Oklahoma, this is a cosy-ish murder mystery with lots and lots of authentic-feeling details about life in a farming community at that time. Alafair and her husband Shaw have nine surviving children, ranging from little kids to teenage sons and full-grown daughters, and the prevailing feeling reminded me very much of the Waltons – they all love each other and get along; the kids are kind and respectful, and help their parents with the farm and housework; and they’re all very close, so that a threat to one is a threat to all.

I say cosy-ish rather than cosy, though, because there’s enough grit in here to keep it feeling real. We learn of the children Alafair lost in infancy, we see the poverty of the less fortunate members of the community, and we see how women’s lives are dependant on the will and nature of their men. Shaw is a lovely husband, who works hard, stays sober and enjoys nothing more than spending time with his wife and kids, so Alafair’s life is sweet, even though she works harder than a modern woman could possibly imagine just to keep her huge family fed and the household running smoothly. Shaw and Alafair have a modern outlook for the time (though not in any way anachronistic), allowing their daughters to be educated beyond basic schooling if they choose – one of the oldest girls has secretarial qualifications, for example.

In contrast, Harley Day is a vicious, drunken brute who neglects his farm, so his wife and family are poor and often hungry, to say nothing of the constant threat of physical violence. Although everyone knows this, there’s no real way to intervene – Harley effectively owns his family, and the idea of his wife leaving him would be scandalous despite his treatment of her, and anyway, how would she survive and be able to feed her many children?

The book is fairly slow, but that seems to suit the story, set in a time when life itself was slower paced and things took longer – no quick phone calls, so if you wanted to ask a neighbour something you had to hitch up the pony to the buggy and drive a few miles over difficult roads and through bitterly cold weather. Casey tells us in detail about how Alafair feeds her family – a massive undertaking with no convenience foods – and how the weekly laundry wash gets done, and so on. But she does it very well, as part of the story rather than as an interruption to it, and I loved all this detail, while thanking my stars for microwaves and washing machines!

The mystery element is very good, although Alafair’s detection skills rely a little too much on lucky guesswork. There’s a good range of suspects, and the pacing, though slow, is steady, holding my interest throughout. Alafair’s method is simply to go and ask questions of various neighbours and townsfolk, and this lets us see how the society works. I didn’t guess the murderer, but found the solution satisfying and believable, and rather darker than I anticipated. I found the whole read enjoyable, absorbing and comfortably relaxing, and Alafair’s plethora of children means there’s plenty of room for more stories about her family in the future – I look forward to reading some of them. 4½ stars for me, so rounded up.

www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you grew up enjoying The Little House on the Prairie and like mysteries, you should enjoy this book. The time is 1912 and the location is Oklahoma. The book shows the life of a farm family early in the 20th century. Expressions, food and chores reflect this time period. The main character Alafair Tucker is a strong woman, loving wife and mother of nine children.

A neighboring farmer and local bootlegger who liked drinking his product too much, is found frozen outside his family home. He also had a large family. He abused his wife and the children were hungry and often not allowed to go school. While laying him out at home for viewing, Alafair who was helping out, noticed a bullet hole behind his ear. It is murder but who would have committed the crime as the old buzzard had it coming. There are many suspects. Alafair becomes involved because her daughter cares for the victim's oldest son. Alafair feels her daughter might be involved and knows more than she is sharing.

The mystery was good. I fluctuated back and forth between suspects. The sense of family and family love is very strong in this book. I want to continue with the series to keep up with the family . I also want to continue due to Alafair is a strong main character and sleuth. She is very admirable. There are turn of the centuries recipes for those who like recipes in their mystery books.

[Maureen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title caught my eye, but I didn't have great expectations for it. I think I picked it up because there was an endorsement by Tony Hillerman on the dustjacket. I finished the book in two evenings, and thoroughly enjoyed it! It evokes a not-so-distant time and place in the early 1900's that my admittedly older parents lived through. People had to make everything from scratch, wash their clothes by hand, and had large families to help with the chores. The narrator is the mother of a large brood of children who helps to figure out who killed the nasty next door neighbor. I thought it was well-plotted, believable, and memorable. I look for more from the same author, who indicated that the book grew out of her own family lore. There are also a few mouth-watering recipes at the end.

[Lana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Donis Casey is a new author to me, and this book is a complete joy to read! It's clean, intriguing, and is quite well written for a debut novel. I did suspect the whodunit, but there were enough twists to keep me reading. Alafair Tucker is quite the character!

[Tinnean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, I kind of expected the thing about Maggie Ellen, but I didn't see that coming. A satisfying mystery all around, with loose ends neatly tied off. And since this is Book 1, I have to wonder about the next book.

[Marti · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't often think of women in the early 1900s solving mysteries. Go, Alafair!

The old buzzard DID have it coming.

[Pam · Rating 5 out of 5]

11/10/07
TITLE/AUTHOR: The Old Buzzard Had It Coming by Donis Casey
RATING: 5/A
GENRE/PUB DATE/# OF PGS: Mystery/2005/206 pgs
SERIES/STAND ALONE: #1
TIME/PLACE: 1912/Oklahoma
CHARACTERS: Alafair Tucker/farmer's wife
FIRST LINES: It was just after dinner on that January day in 1912, & very cold w/ a threat of snow, when Harley Day began the journey to his eternal reward.

COMMENTS: library book, recommended & have #2 from Poison Pen Press Bookclub. Loved it! Unique voice. Plotting, characters and setting all very well done! Harley Day is found dead, frozen out in the fields. At first it was believed he was drunk & froze to death until the women were dressing him for the funeral and discovered a bullet hole behind his ear. Harley was mean and not liked by anyone. Despite the fact that most believed he deserved to die, there was still a murderer around. John Lee, Harley's son and the boyfriend of Alafair's daughter, Phoebe, is suspected. Alafair doesn't believe John Lee is the killer & does her own detecting.

[Zora · Rating 4 out of 5]

4+ stars. Engaging historical mystery, far better than the low number of reviews here might suggest. Set on a farm in Oklahoma 100 years ago, the novel introduces an amateur sleuth, a farm woman and mother of 11. A real SOB neighbor gets murdered and it could have been anyone who knew him, for to know him was to loathe him; our heroine has to figure out who did it to help out a daughter. The mystery is fine, but the details of cooking, socializing, animal care, and courting of the era were what kept me riveted. I've researched these matters extensively myself and found not an error or anachronism here; moreover she brought that research to life for me in seamless ways. I'd love to read the rest of her novels in the series.

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alafair Tucker is an early 1900s country farm wife/mother who finds herself involved in solving the murder of a drunken reprobate who no one in town is sorry to see dead. This was a light read and I had trouble putting it down because I couldn't wait to see who did it. I can usually figure out who the murderer is early on in a mystery, but Donis Casey does a good job of throwing in red herrings, and the ending caught me by surprise. It was a funny, warm, and clean read with a couple of pleasant surprises at the end (including recipes of all the food mentioned in the story).

[Cynthia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why did I wait so long to read this? The engaging protagonist is the mother of eleven children, an Oklahoma farm wife, and a bit nosey. Besides reading a good mystery, this period piece whisked me back me into early 1900s Oklahoma. The dialogue, laced with rural vocabulary, made me feel like I could sit right down at the kitchen table and jaw a bit with the family.

[Shelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like mysteries, especially those that would be rated G or PG if they were movies. This one is set around 1910 and the main character is a farm wife and mother of many children. I like her personality, her devotion to her family and her persistence. The story is interesting and I enjoyed reading it.

[Kristen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved every single word of this book! It’s a new favorite for sure. Oklahoma, early 1909s, it could have been written about my family! Right down to “arrived from Arkansas in a covered wagon train of members.” The mystery was really good. I figured it out, but instead of being disappointed, I was thrilled, because the answer was just so good.

[Lillie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A puzzling mystery, a surprising solution, captivating relationships, and interesting characters combine to make this historical mystery a good read.

[Avid Series Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Old Buzzard Had It Coming by Donis Casey is the first book of the Alafair Tucker mystery series set in 1912 rural Oklahoma. Drunken and abusive Harley Day is found frozen in the snow one morning. The old buzzard surely had it coming....he beat his wife, mistreated his children, cheated his illegal moonshine customers, vandalized his sister's nearby farm, gambled away his money. All are better off without him, except his son John is suspected of his murder. At first even John thinks he is guilty, because he fired a 'pop gun' at his father to protect his girlfriend Phoebe from his father's violent attack. Phoebe's mother Alafair doesn't think John killed his father (at least she hopes not). She begins interviewing all who did business with Harley. She finds many motives for murder, as well as many 'holes' in alibis for the night of Harley's death. But which one did it?

Reading the preface before the story, I was already intrigued: the author has gathered her own personal family history as a genealogy project, then decided to write a mystery series loosely based on the interesting family stories within their historical perspective. A wealth of detail is provided about everyday living: for example, how Alafair and a hired woman do the laundry for eleven people. It takes them most of a day, leaving only time for them to prepare meals, and that's in "good weather", when the clothes don't freeze on the line.

Alafair is a fair and loving wife and mother, a loyal friend, practical and smart. She finds a way to make sure justice is done, and finish all her chores too. John and Naomi Day are young, but they capably handle responsibilities beyond their years. I look forward to reading more of the series.

[Eugene · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rural Oklahoma (most all of the state I expect) in 1912. Alafair Tucker and her husband Shaw are quite busy raising their nine children and running a farm, but not so busy that Alafair doesn’t realize that her daughter Phoebe is quite taken with nearby neighbor John Lee Day as is he with her.
The Days are dirt poor however, with little in the way of prospects and John Lee’s father Harley is a mean and nasty man, bitter and drunken, who mistreats his family badly, most especially his wife. And then one freezing cold late winter morning his body is discovered in the snow outside the family’s house. Quite sad, as it likely means the Days will lose their home, but even worse is the discovery that Harley has been killed.
Alafair worries about her daughter’s involvement and the secrecy the two young people are exhibiting, and decides that to protect Phoebe she must herself discover who is truly guilty of the murder.
While well written, this book is set in a time and place that are alien to my comfort and druthers, and depicts a life in the rural America of that era that is completely unappealing; kudos to Casey for a well written first effort (there’s now 10 in the series altogether), but not an area I’m likely to revisit anytime soon…

[Tara Carpenter · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am not sure what to think of this one. It was so different than the murder mysteries I normally read. It did not keep me glued to the pages but somehow I keep thinking about the characters and the situations.

Our heroine, Alafair, is a mother of nine, living in rural Oklahoma in 1912 when her hated, irascible neighbor is murdered. She somehow embroils herself in the middle of it, making some pretty questionable decisions, all while spending long days cooking, cleaning, and providing for her family. And this book goes into quite a bit of detail on their work and meals. Which makes me really thankful for the modern conveniences in my own home! Although I also wish my kids were as capable and helpful as the Tucker children!

I'm not sure if I will continue in this series or not, but it was worth the read.

Completely clean in language, sex, and mostly of violence. Obviously there is a murder, and this man was particularly contemptible in his treatment of others. Not to mention he runs moonshine. But there were no graphic descriptions. I think it would be fine for even sensitive readers.

[Alifa Saadya · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to the audiobook version, and enjoyed it very much. Alafair Tucker is an unusual sleuth, being a mother of 8 children, living the hard-working life of a settled pioneer in Oklahoma. Her family has some Chickasaw heritage, but this is not emphasized in the story. The Tuckers are neighbors with the Day family, whose father, a mean alcoholic, is discovered dead after a heavy snowfall, presumed to have died of exposure -- until a .22 bullet wound is discovered in his head. The first suspect is his son, John Lee. The author describes many details of life in the early years of the twentieth century, large families, hard work, some families prosperous and generally happy, others like the Days, grindingly poor. Many characters in the nearby town are introduced, and the story moves along quite well. I had a hard time hitting the pause button. I am definitely interested in reading or listening to other books in the series. At the end, the author provides recipes for some of the foods mentioned in the book -- the kinds of things my own farmer forebears would have eaten.

[Phoebe · Rating 3 out of 5]

When abusive drunk Harley Day is found dead, no one much mourns him--certainly not his downtrodden wife nor his children. But it turns out that cause of death wasn't the cold, it was murder. While the sheriff begins his investigation, local farmer's wife Alafair Tucker starts her own poking around, since her daughter Phoebe, and Harley's son, John Lee, are prime suspects. Well-written for a small press first novel and atmospherically set in 1912 Oklahoma, this book offers a good plot and a decent mystery with a twist at the end. Alafair herself is a hint romanticized (a 35 year old mother of 9 on a big farm should seem just a little less energetic, and one of the situations she gets herself into is just stupidly dangerous) but nearly all the characters are given equal development. I wouldn't consider this a cozy mystery, it is something more, but certainly it doesn't contain sex or graphic violence. The recipes at the end are a nice touch, supporting the descriptions of farm fare throughout the book. Adult.

[The Library Lady · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not an Agatha Christie fan--for me, a good mystery has characters with depth, preferably part of cast that grows and develops with time. And a historical setting makes that even better. This series has both--and I've now read most of the books in this series.

The setting--in 1910 era Oklahoma--is pretty unique. And Alafair, the mother of 10, related to half the county, is not your usual heroine. The details of daily life and the doings of her family are as interesting as the mystery itself.

Each book tends to feature another of the Tucker children--Casey has worked her way through the older kids, and I'm not sure where she's going to take it from here with the younger kids--and please note who is Alafair's favorite child. You will figure that out if you keep reading the series. And you should. It's a good solid series, though I won't be cooking any of the recipes Casey includes at the end of each book, which don't really fit my 2017 family's diet!

[Nolan · Rating 2 out of 5]

John Lee Day and Phoebe Tucker are in love, and as in our time, young people in 1912 Oklahoma sought private places to engage in their amorous activities. Trouble is, John Lee’s dad discovers the two, and that’s trouble, because dad is an abusive constant drunk. He attempts first to beat his son, but the Tucker girl gets flung to the ground, and young John Lee finally fights back after all the years of abuse. He can’t stand to see the girl he loves get knocked around by his drunken father. Naturally, when the dissipated old drunk winds up dead, John Lee and Phoebe are prime suspects. It’s up to Phoebe’s mom, Alafair Tucker, to figure out how the old man really died.

Alas, I predicted the end of this numerous chapters before it ended, and I was rather disappointed to be right. This is an ok mystery, but I doubt I’ll try the rest of the series.

[Spuddie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in Oklahoma in 1912, it feels a lot more like "pioneer times," I suppose because of the more rural setting. The main character is a farm wife with 9 children (living) and her next door neighbor's abusive husband is found dead in the snow. First presumed to have died of drink and the cold, there can be no denying the bullet hole in his head upon closer inspection. Alafair gets involved because one of her daughters is sweet on the son of the dead man, and initially he is the sheriff's prime suspect.

I enjoyed the story and the setting is certainly unique and I shall read on in the series if I can locate the subsequent books. There are lots of details about daily farm life which were very interesting, although the mystery itself was a no-brainer.

[Ann R. Phillips · Rating 4 out of 5]

I felt like I was back at my Granny's house with all my aunts busy fixing Sunday dinner and discussing all the neighbors. So many books about farm and small town life in the early 20th century miss the natural dialects, idioms and customs. For me the murder solution was less important than the characters and the setting, but the mystery was interesting and involved so many great characters. I look forward to interacting with these folks again. There was a memory on every page. I can 't wait to hear Alafair say, "I swan!" like my Granny did!

[Lori Caudill · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this book because it was "on sale" through a book deals site and it sounded interesting. It was ok more like a 2.5 star.

A couple of things I found annoying. First, the over use and inappropriate use of the words "at length" at the end of sentences. Second, The language was incongruous, simple accented language a farmer might use combined with words that would come from someone college educated.

The story was predictable and cozy. I won't be continuing.

[Suzanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice quick read

This was a fun book to read!

Alafair (I love that name!) was an interesting lady and very resourceful. She had an inquisitive mind that got her into trouble more than once.

The story had some twists and turns that kept me guessing up to the end.

Nothing spectacular here. Just a good fun story. ‘Something to read between 2 heavy stories’ is the very best way to describe it!