The Old Buzzard Had It Coming
Donis Casey
Poisoned Pen, July 2005, $22.95, 226 pp.
ISBN 1590581490

In 1912 Oklahoma, Harley Day works a hard scrapple farm barely making ends meet and beating up his wife and frightening his children. They wouldn't have the farm if it wasn't for their oldest son John Lee who knows that his father owns a still and sells moonshine. One night, Harley doesn't come home but nobody worries because that is his norm. John Lee finds his father dead in the snow and at first thinks he froze to death.

When the women prepare the body for burial, neighbor Alafair Tucker finds a .22 bullet from a lady's derringer in his head. She soon learns that John Lee is in love with her daughter Phoebe and she with him. Alafair's .22 is missing and she fears that her daughter gave it to John Lee, the sheriff's number one suspect, making Phoebe an accomplice. To ease her own mind, Alafair decides to investigate and discovers that every person she talks with has a reason to want Harley dead.

Readers get a taste for early twentieth century frontier living in THE OLD BUZZARD HAD IT COMING. Alafair is a delightful character; a tigress, who will protects her cubs and doesn't care if she puts her life in danger while questioning lowlife customers of Harley. The historical research that serves as a foundation to this work makes the storyline believable and earns Alafair her own series.

Harriet Klausner