Book description
Who killed Uncle Bill? Alafair Tucker is desperate to find out. One
August evening in 1914, a bushwhacker ended a pleasant outing by blowing
a hole in Bill McBride, kidnapping and ravaging Bill's fiancée, and
wounding Alafair's daughter Mary. Does Mary know who did the low-down
deed? If she does, the bullet that grazed her knocked that information
right out of her head. All she remembers is that it has something to do
with the Fourth of July. Or is there more? The answer seems to be
floating piece by tiny piece to the surface of Mary's consciousness.
Several malicious acts testify to the fact that Bill's killer is still
around and attempting to cover his tracks. The question is, can Mary
remember before the murderer manages to eliminate everyone who could
identify him? The law is hot on the bushwhacker's trail. Alafair thinks
there is little she can do to help the sheriff, but that will never stop
her from trying. She has no qualms about driving Mary to distraction
with her persistent snooping and constant hovering. If there's a chance
she can protect Mary from further harm or help her remember, she'll do
anything she can. Even confront a vicious killer. Casey's mellow third
Alafair Tucker whodunit (after 2006's Hornswoggled) is as laid-back as
its 1914 Oklahoma setting. Alafair, farmer's wife and busy mother to a
flock of youngsters, searches grimly for a killer after mysterious
gunmen shoot her brother-in-law Bill McBride and abduct and rape Laura
Ross, Bill's fiancée, while they're out riding with Alafair's daughters,
Mary and Ruth. Mary, who suffered a head injury from a stray bullet,
struggles to remember a “mighty important thought” that might help
identify the miscreants. Even the Tuckers' once trusted farm hands, Kurt
and Micah, fall under suspicion as another attempt is made to end
Laura's life. Cousin Scott, the sheriff, is leaving no stone unturned in
his official investigation, but he's quietly confident that Alafair will
use her skills and intuition to ferret out a solution. Casey gives
convincing voice to the early Midwest much as Sharyn McCrumb does for
her Appalachians, including period recipes that help to convey the
literal flavor of the era. 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. The Oklahoma Writers'
Federation awarded The Old Buzzard first place in it's annual writing
contest as the best unpublished mystery of 2004. For the past twenty
years, Donis has lived in Tempe, Arizona, with her husband.
