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THE SKY TOOK HIM
by Donis Casey
Poisoned Pen Press, January 2009
252 pages
$24.95
ISBN: 1590585712


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

The Tucker family homesteaded in Oklahoma and lives on a farm. There are ten living children, some married, others still living at home and helping with the work of which there is a great deal. Alafair, the mother, has a reputation for putting herself in danger and solving mysteries.

In THE SKY TOOK HIM (fourth in the series) it is 1915 and Alafair with her oldest daughter Martha and her youngest Grace are visiting Alafair's sister in Enid, Oklahoma, because Ruth Ann's husband Lester is dying. Her son-in-law Kenneth has gone missing at a very inopportune time for he is badly needed at home. When Alafair starts nosing around she finds that Kenneth may be mixed up with some very unpleasant people. He has also taken some money to invest in a wildcat oil well which may not produce.

This series does a magnificent job of portraying Oklahoma just after the turn of the century. It shows the very hard life these farmers lived but also the joy and happiness that this family had. Farming is very hard work and every member of the family had to contribute something to it. But the Tuckers raised their children to become independent and live their own lives. Some of the children are even thinking of going on to college, and Martha has a very good job at the local bank, one she does not want to give up to get married. Relying on each other, this family not only survives but prospers.

Enid, where Alafair is visiting, is on the Cherokee Strip which was the last area of Oklahoma opened up for settlement. Lester, her brother-in-law, was one of the first legal settlers (Buck Collins, the town villain, was probably a Sooner) and the town is celebrating Founders' Day Jubilee while Alafair is visiting. The depiction of the celebration calls to mind small-town festivals and carnivals as they were in simpler times. The characters allude to the war going on in Europe but it really has no effect on them yet. They also hint at the growing movement for women's rights.

The main characters are well-delineated. Alafair is very no-nonsense, having worked all her life, and has trouble taking any time off at all. But she is a wise woman, and she knows something is bothering Martha. Martha is torn between the world she grew up in and the new world of the twentieth century where women can do something other than marry and bear children. Grace is an adorable three year old. The rest of the characters are less carefully drawn. The author does manage, in the earlier books, to make every one of the family's children distinct and recognizable.

The mystery is perhaps not as inexplicable as it might be. It will be obvious to the discerning reader early in the book what has happened to Kenneth and probably who was at fault. But the enjoyment is watching Alafair figure it out and then decide on a course of action to take care of it. Even more appealing is the picture of life in a much simpler age in small town Oklahoma. It is worth reading the book if only for that.

Reviewed by Sally A. Fellows, August 2008

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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