Customer Reviews

Coyote Revenge

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In 1935 Cash County, Oklahoma, someone shoots Hoyt and Inez Ready before torching the farmhouse with the bodies inside. Who did it and why remain a mystery even two years later even though their son Dub is the sheriff of nearby Vernon.

In November 1937, Okie Dunn returns to Vernon after giving up on law school. However, Okie's life radically changes when his friend Dub is killed in what apparently is a hunting accident. The townsfolk give the law enforcement job to Okie, mostly because of his time in law school. He thinks the former sheriff was deliberately murdered. Okie begins to investigate the killings of the three Readys, wondering if a tie to Hoyt's former activities as a banker repossessing property in Dust Bowl, Oklahoma is related.

COYOTE REVENGE is an excellent historical fiction tale that centers on a mystery. However, the who-done-it seems to take a back seat to the lifestyles of people suffering through the Depression in Oklahoma. The story line is entertaining as the era is brought alive so that readers can feel the frustrations of the locals. The mystery is fun, but not earth shattering. Fans of historical fiction will devour Fred Harris' insightful tale.

Yes, this book is written by THE Fred R. Harris. You old timers will remember his as the Oklahoma boy born during the Depression in Walters, OK. You know, the one that went on to graduate from OU law school and serve in the State senate for eight years and the U.S. Senate for nine years. The same guy that ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976. Maybe you have read some of his seventeen authored or co-authored books on political science or social issues. If you happen to be one of those young whipper-snappers that don't remember Harris but are kind of interested, you are in luck. Coyote Revenge is Harris'first historical fiction mystery novel and it is a real keeper. The story is set in rural southwestern Oklahoma in the mid-1930's and is replete with characters that you will swear are right out of Walters, OK. They are all here: ranchers, farmers, Indians, small towns bankers and some womern you will never forget. In addition, there are multiple murders and a suicide that keeps the story moving along with humor, suspense, tragedy, decency, and tenderness that is as authentic as it is moving. Harris is true to his roots in the description and dialogue of the characters and events in the Depression era small town in Oklahoma. I have read a number of scholarly works on the "okies" of the dust bowl ear and Harris has the scene down pat. From the dislike of Hoover to the revering of Roosevelt, where "Hudge" Dunn, father of the principal character "Okie", states "When Roosevelt took his seat in '33 we commenced to climb, and we clumb!" From the placing of a "ten pound" card in the window for the ice man and the unforgettable taste of a NeHi soda on a hot, dry Oklahoma summer day to the pie suppers and share cropping struggles, its all here in dust-bowl dialect and faithful detail. It is apparent Harris never forgot his roots. If you are looking for a good mystery story with the added bonus of a true description of life in rural Oklahoma during the Depression, get this book. As some would say about Fred Harris, "He done good."

I started out giving it five stars, but downgraded to four because the mystery was so easy to solve. However, and this is a big however, the sense of time, place, and people was so right on the nose that I could hear my grandfather's voice coming right out at me off the pages. He was born in the Oklahoma Territory and was one of the "Okies" to migrate to California to be called "fruit tramps." To write in such a way that I could see, hear, and taste the depression era thirties, I think, is evidence of an outstanding writer. To know these people, as Mr. Harris does, makes me understand my own family who were as taciturn as the characters in this book. With a few exceptions, everybody he wrote about came alive as someone I've known and loved.

Perhaps, in the end, the mystery of the story should not be the main focus, but the introduction of these wonderful people who shared the painful, hungry, trying times of the era should be. As I began this review by downgrading, I will end it with upgrading the book back to five stars.

o/~ "Many months have come and gone since I wandered from my home in the Oklahoma hills where I was born... Way down yonder in the Indian Nation, I rode my pony on the reservation, in the Oklahoma hills where I was born .." o/~ (that's Woody Guthrie singing about Eastern Oklahoma.) In prose resonate of the era, Fred Harris, formerly of the western Oklahoma prairie, and former U.S. Senator, has created a sheriff/sleuth that Sooners can be proud of. This is also a tale of those who stuck out the Depression in Oklahoma while the Joads went to harvest "The Grapes of Wrath" in California. I only have one question: Whatever happened to Progess Beer?

One of the most impressive things about this book is the period detail; set in the Depression, it convincingly captures a way of life unique to Southwest Oklahoma. There is wisdom, poverty, strength of character, humor, prejudice, and even a nice little mystery story woven in.

The only reason I didn't rate the book 5 stars was because of the mystery itself, which I think suffered because of the book's compact length. With too few red herrings, the short list of suspects made the "whodunit" aspect a little too easy.

Still, a very enjoyable read, and I will be reading the sequel soon.

As a mystery author with my debut novel in its initial release within this culture that worships youth, I suppose I should not reveal my age by admitting I actually once wore a presidential campaign button for the author of this mystery. I would've voted for him too, save for the fact that Fred Harris dropped out of the race long before the California primary. He would've gotten my first ever vote (see, I'm not THAT ancient!), but now I get to vote strongly in favor of his first mystery novel. COYOTE REVENGE is set in Oklahoma during the Depression. Times are tough for everyone, especially Hoyt and Inez Ready. Someone shoots them and then burns down their home. Two years later, the mystery is still unsolved when their son, Dub, dies under dubious circumstances. Dub Ready was sheriff, and the sheriff's job then goes to Okie Dunn, a friend of Dub's who recently returned home after dropping out of law school. Okie begins to investigate the deaths, and the investigation produces some interesting answers. Fred Harris has written a terrific historical mystery here, and it captures its time and place perfectly. I would expect nothing less from a man I still think would have made an excellent president.

As an author who loves small towns...I felt right at home with Fred Harris's first Okie Dunn novel, "Coyote Revenge." It was like finding a wildflower pressed in an old Bible, or a photograph in a shoebox at the back of the closet.

"Coyote Revenge" was reviewed in the New York Times under Crime Fiction, but the mystery is pretty thin. Who killed the old sheriff? There aren't many suspects, so take your pick. The protagonist, Okie Dunn, is the new sheriff, but there's so little violence and so much examination of personal relationships that I'm tempted to call it a cozy. Police procedures in that time and place consist of shipping a gun off the State Crime Bureau by Mistletoe Express.

"Coyote Revenge" is a small, scrumptious slice of American life in the 1930s. Harris sets his novel in a fictional version of the little southwestern Oklahoma town of Walters. That's where he grew up, and where I was living at about the same time, so I know the territory well.

The story is simple. Okie Dunn is suspended from law school at the University of Oklahoma for decking a professor. He goes home, where his father is dying of lung cancer, and gets work as a cattle trader. When the sheriff, a boyhood buddy, is murdered, Okie pins on the star and sets out to discover "whodunit."

Harris has perfect pitch when it comes to the way we talked back then and there (and still do sometimes). His dialogue is a flawless rendering of what may seem like a foreign language to some readers. His description of the home cooking of that day will ring bells with anyone who grew up on either side of the Red River in the first half of the 20th century. Example:

"Most of Mama's recipes, if she'd ever written them down, would have probably started out with: 'First, get the grease hot.' All the meat we ate -- home-cured ham and sausage, newly killed chicken, a meat-locker steak -- was salted with a heavy hand and then fried nearly stiff. She salted and fried potatoes and mealed-okra, too, in plenty of lard. And Mama's string beans or a mess of greens always went into the pot with a good dose of bacon drippings that she'd saved in a tin can on top of the stove. Then, salted generously, too, they were boiled to kingdom come."

If you want an honest look at life in rural Oklahoma during the bleak years of the Great Depression, in a story told with humor and affection, this is your book...