Death of a Rainmaker by Laurie Loewenstein
Laurie Loewenstein's first Dust Bowl Mystery, Death of a Rainmaker , was the most evocative book I've read since Larry D. Sweazy's last Marjorie Trumaine mystery, See Also Proof . The author says she was inspired by Timothy Egan's nonfiction book, The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dustbowl , and you can truly see that in all of the detailed description. In the 1930s in Jackson County, Oklahoma, they've gone over 240 days with no rain. In desperation, a local businessman's group hires an itinerant rainmaker, Roland Coombs, who boasts in less than five days they should have rain. But, the day after his show with TNT and blasting powder, Coombs is found dead in an alley after a terrible dust storm. It's up to Sheriff Temple Jennings to discover who would want to kill a stranger in town. Temple has all kinds of trouble on his hands, not just a murder case. Despite his hatred of that aspect of his job, it's his s...