Finished another 2 in Poisoned Pen Press'
99 cent early-in-series DRM-free introductory mystery sale. I can see I have another 2 authors/series to add to the future read-from-library/purchase-on-sale list.
Donis Casey's
The Old Buzzard Had It Coming, 1st in her Alafair Tucker series set in rural Oklahoma in the 1910s, was the better of the two, although both were at least reasonably good.
The whodunnit overall was one that I was actually able to get right for once despite its plausibly expanding circle of suspects, but mainly because I consider myself far more bleakly cynical about human nature than the relatively sheltered farmwife and small-town denizens which populate this tale, despite their harsher and more practically-oriented lives.
What makes this story is the depiction of said lives in the simply matter-of-fact background setting and little details, mentioned so casually, which bring home everyday existence in a time before public transit, hospitals, and even indoor toilets and electric lights, much less so many other things we nowadays take for granted, had found their way to even moderate-sized country towns.
This is very definitely a small-town murder mystery, distinct from the nosy cosiness that might be considered the natural province of a female amateur sleuth with a domestic occupation and a tendency to be both stubborn and inquisitive in a tiny community setting, by depicting quite well the insularity and isolation of said community. While it is the sort of place where everyone knows everyone else and what they're up to, and have gossiping about that as a major pastime, it's hardly a charmed circle of acquaintances suddenly startled by gasp!swoon! murder.
In fact, it's the sort of bleakly realistic place where the interaction which separates the relatively privileged and well-connected denizens from the less fortunate which is aptly described by the following passage:
Quote:
She and Shaw and their friends and neighbors had all known of and deplored the situation at the Day place, but it was not unheard of for a man to drink to excess, or to determine that work was more important than education for his children, or to keep his wife at home.
It was no one else’s business, and none of the neighbors would have interfered. They would have helped any member of the family who asked, but no one had asked.
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This is not only a time and place before plumbing and telephones, but also before Child Protective Services, domestic abuse shelters, and any protection from a law that doesn't even exist yet, where the only attempt at recourse, much less justice, may turn out to end in murder.
Your neighbours may be kindly and bring over the occasional offering of non-posthumous supplies and goods to help you out a little (although I didn't particularly observe that and it looked like the food donations only came in afterwards), but that's as far as their concern goes and they'll consider it only right to leave you and your children to a fairly hellish existence from which death is a welcome escape, and make excuses to themselves for doing so after tragedy strikes.
In any case, medium-high recommend for a fairly good historically-set story which is good at showing the period, as well as a telling a reasonably realistic story based on things that could have been fairly standard in that period and setting, and wrapping it up with a decent mystery of who-really-dunnit when the potential candidates were so many because the victim was just that kind of guy.
Also, it comes with recipes, if you happen to feel like trying your hand at making 1910 country dishes.
The other mystery was the more modern but still past-oriented
Artifacts by
Mary Anna Evans, which I'll get to after I've had something to eat. And this is already a giant wall o'text anyway.