One winter evening in 1912, in the woods outside of Boynton, Oklahoma, abusive and drunken Harley Day surprises his son John Lee and the neighbor girl Phoebe Tucker in a lovers' tryst. An hour later, when John Lee walks his beloved home, Phoebe's mother, Alafair Tucker, suspects that something is amiss. How could she know her daughter has been involved in a violent confrontation that will make Phoebe and her beau murder suspects?

At supper that evening, over bowls of soupy beans and buttery cornbread, Alafair, her husband Shaw, and their nine lively children, much amused that Phoebe has a boyfriend, discuss the unfortunate Day family. The Days are tormented by their evil father, who beats his wife, mistreats his children, and wastes their money. The mother is helpless, and the eldest daughter, Maggie Ellen, has run away, leaving only 19-year-old John Lee and his 13-year-old sister Naomi to care for the younger children and keep the family from destitution.

Then... well, the old buzzard had it coming!

This Best Unpublished Mystery of 2004 (The Oklahoma Writers' Federation, Inc.) is the first in a new series.

Reviews

Life on the Oklahoma frontier in 1912 was anything but easy, yet Casey's sweet-tempered debut manages to make readers nostalgic for simpler times. Running a successful farm is hard work, and on the Tucker farm everyone in the family has a job to do, under the proud watchful eyes of father Shaw and mother Alafair. So when the town bully is found dead in the snow and one of the Tucker girls might be involved in the murder, Alafair pours all her considerable energy into uncovering the truth. Of course, she'll eventually find it, for this mother of nine living children (two died young) "know[s] everything all the time." And that's the essential flaw in this therwise

admirable work--no surprises. The regular up-and-down cycles of the plot don't allow the tension to build beyond a certain point. New developments often occur offstage and the same details are rehashed too many times around too many kitchen tables. In every other respect, though, the appealingly homey world Casey creates rings true. With so much going for her, readers will be right pleased to see a sequel. -- Publishers Weekly (6.6.2005)

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Poisoned Pen Press also offers the debut of Donis Casey, a writer living in Tempe, Ariz.

Casey's setting is a harsh winter in 1912 Oklahoma, and setting, attitude and atmosphere are as important -- perhaps more important for readers who go with her -- than the novel's central mystery.

It's the 20th century, but in this novel, it sometimes feels more like the 19th.

Casey's heroine is Alafair Tucker. Texas singer-songwriter Tom Russell once said he wrote his song "Hallie Lonnigan" in response to those who complained that there weren't enough songs about the women who helped settle the West and carve lives and build towns in harsh settings.

Alafair Tucker is such a woman ... mother, farmer ... sleuth.

Rural Oklahoma isn't a boomtown, so when a body is found in a snowdrift, locals have to pitch in -- preparing the body for burial in the absence of any formal local mortician:

"They worked in silence for several minutes, straightening the body and drawing off the wet, muddy clothing. Alafair turned her back as Mrs. Day tugged off the long johns."

Not long after that, the two women find the bullet hole in the corpse's head -- behind the ear.

The dead man is a dissolute neighbor of Alafair's named Harley Day: "He's just an evil man," one character asserts. "And he drinks something awful, Ma. He makes his own corn liquor and sells it to the low types around."

Some of those closest to the dead man look like prime suspects.

Casey has a good ear and convincingly captures period and regional voices ... the slow and sometimes meandering ways in which people talk and talk around things.

The novel is also supplemented with a series of recipes attributed to Alafair and which are deadly in their own right: "Be forewarned," Casey writes, "These are not health foods."

The recipes include those for buttermilk biscuits, fried ham and gravy and peach cobbler. (The author warns those seeking an opportunity to have an authentic experience of the cobbler to be sure to have a cow on hand: "Cream like Alafair used is very hard to come by in the United States these days," Casey notes.)--Craig McDonald, ThisWeek (August 4, 2005)

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As the mother of nine, Alafair Tucker's hard but basically peaceful life on a farm on the Oklahoma frontier in 1912 is changed forever when one of her

daughters--17-year-old Phoebe--is involved in the murder of an obnoxious neighbor. Phoebe is the girlfriend of the chief suspect, the dead man's son,

and might even have been his accomplice in the crime.

Under Donis Casey's gifted hand and shrewd historic eye, Tucker adds solving a mystery to her busy schedule. It all could easily have gone soft and cute, especially the many long visits to the Tuckers' fellow farmers. But by avoiding all the built-in traps, Casey has produced a sharp and suspenseful

first novel. -- Dick Adler, Chicago Tribune (10 July 2005)

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"As vivid and unforgettable as a crimson Oklahoma sunset" -Carolyn Hart

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"Donis Casey...gives us a tale full of wit, humor, sorrow and, more important, the truth. Her Alafair Tucker deserves to stand beside Ma Joad in literature's gallery of heroic ladies."

-- Tony Hillerman