Book description
It's the spring of 1913, and love is in bloom for Alice Tucker. Alice's
new beau, Walter Kelley, is handsome, popular, and wealthy. Everyone in
Boynton, Oklahoma, likes him. Everyone but Alice's mother, Alafair. She
sees that Walter has a weakness for the ladies-and they for him.
Moreover, Walter's late wife Louise had been stabbed in the heart and
her body disposed of in Cane Creek only a few months earlier. The
murderer has never been caught. The sheriff has cleared Walter of the
deed-he has an alibi-but Alafair is not so sure that he wasn't involved
in some way. Something literally doesn't smell right. Could it be
Louise's tormented spirit signaling clues from the other side, or is
Alafair scenting a more direct link to the crime? Even if he had nothing
to do with his wife's death, Alafair judges Walter to have been a bad
husband. With the help of her feisty mother-in-law, Sally McBride,
Alafair sets out to prove to the headstrong Alice that Walter is not the
paragon she thinks he is. As she searches for the truth behind the death
of Louise Kelley, Alafair uncovers such a tangle of lies, misdirection,
and deceit that she begins to think that the whole town has been
downright hornswoggled! The author evokes Oklahoma of almost a hundred
years ago and peoples it with wonderfully diverse characters with
intertwined relationships. Alafair Gunn Tucker, mother of 10 and amateur
sleuth, is concerned that one of her daughters is falling for a recently
widowed barber who may have killed his wife. Partly in an effort to
protect Alice, Alafair pursues the clues left behind by the killer (or
victim), and the mystery she unravels seems to tie half of the town to
the murder. There are moments of farce and elements of danger. Readers
can almost smell the scent of death on the bloodstained rug and taste
the homemade butter and potato patties (recipes included). The book
provides an entertaining way for teens to appreciate the richness of
life in this time and place. The idioms and local color are delightful,
and the characters are real enough for readers to fear for their safety.
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.
