Death of a Rainmaker: A Dust Bowl Mystery
--Finalist for the 2019 Oklahoma Book Awards, Fiction
"This striking historical mystery . . . is brooding and gritty and graced with authenticity." --NPR, One of the Best Books of 2018 selected by Maureen Corrigan
"The murder investigation allows Loewenstein to probe into the lives of proud people who would never expose their troubles to strangers. People like John Hodge, the town's most respected lawyer, who knocks his wife around, and kindhearted Etha Jennings, who surreptitiously delivers home-cooked meals to the hobo camp outside town because one of the young Civilian Conservation Corps workers reminds her of her dead son. Loewenstein's sensitive treatment of these dark days in the Dust Bowl era offers little humor but a whole lot of compassion." --New York Times Book Review
When a rainmaker is bludgeoned to death in the pitch-blackness of a colossal dust storm, small-town sheriff Temple Jennings shoulders yet another burden in the hard times of the 1930s Dust Bowl. The killing only magnifies Temple's ongoing troubles: a formidable opponent in the upcoming election, the repugnant burden of enforcing farm foreclosures, and his wife's lingering grief over the loss of their eight-year-old son.
As the sheriff and his young deputy investigate the murder, their suspicions focus on a teenager, Carmine, serving with the Civilian Conservation Corps. The deputy, himself a former CCCer, struggles with remaining loyal to the corps while pursuing his own aspirations as a lawman.
When the investigation closes in on Carmine, Temple's wife, Etha, quickly becomes convinced of his innocence and sets out to prove it. But Etha's own probe soon reveals a darker web of secrets, which imperil Temple's chances of reelection and cause the husband and wife to confront their long-standing differences about the nature of grief.
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Laurie Loewenstein is the author of the best-selling novel, Unmentionables. An Ohio native, she currently lives in Columbia, Maryland.
Set in Vermillion, Okla., in 1935, this superb series launch from Loewenstein . . . beautifully captures the devastation of the land and people in the dust bowl.-- "Publishers Weekly, Starred Review, Pick of the Week for October 8, 2018"
Loewenstein movingly describes the events and the people, from farm eviction auctions and hobo villages to Dish Nights at the movies. She vividly brings to life a town filled with believable characters, from a young woman learning her own worth to the deputy sheriff figuring out where his loyalties lie. This warm and evocative novel captures a time and place, with well-researched details shown through the lives and circumstances of one American town.-- "Kirkus Reviews"
The plot is compelling, the character development effective and the setting carefully and accurately designed . . . I have lived in the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma; I know about wind and dust . . . Combining a well created plot with an accurate, albeit imagined, setting and characters that 'speak' clearly off of the page make Death of a Rainmaker a pleasant adventure in reading.
-- "The Oklahoman"
The plot is solid in Death of a Rainmaker, but what makes Loewenstein's novel so outstanding is the cast of characters she has assembled . . . Death of a Rainmaker is a superb book, one that sets the reader right down amid some of the hardest times our country has faced, and lets us feel those hopeful farmers' despair as they witness their dreams turning to dust.
-- "Mystery Scene Magazine"
