all your Reads in Here

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...

I was so impressed with Laurie Loewenstein's first Dust Bowl mystery, that I asked if I could interview her. Tomorrow, I review Death of a Rainmaker . Thank you, Laurie, for taking time for the questions. Laurie, Would you introduce yourself to readers?  I am a fifth generation Midwesterner from central and western Ohio. My ancestors were farmers, butchers, salesmen and village merchants. My first job after college and grad school (where I majored in history) was with a small-town daily newspaper in Upstate New York as a feature and obituary writer. Edith Wharton, Barbara Pym, Richard Price, Ruth Rendell, William Maxell, Bruce Catton and Herman Melville fill places of honor on my bookshelves. After living in eastern Pennsylvania for 25 years, I make my home in Maryland. Please introduce us to Sheriff Temple Jennings and his wife, Etha. Temple is an honest man trying to balance justice with practicality in the hard times of the Great Depression. He detests standing guard at farm for...