The Drop Edge of Yonder (Alafair Tucker Mysteries (Hardcover)) [Hardcover]

Donis Casey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 15, 2007 | Series: Alafair Tucker Mysteries (Hardcover)

Alafair Tucker is desperate to find out. One August evening in 1914, a bushwhacker ended a pleasant outing by blowing a hole in Bill McBride, kidnapping and ravaging Bills fiance, and wounding Alafairs daughter Mary. All Mary knows is that the crime had something to do with the Fourth of July.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Casey's mellow third Alafair Tucker whodunit (after 2006's Hornswoggled) is as laid-back as its 1914 Oklahoma setting. Alafair, farmer's wife and busy mother to a flock of youngsters, searches grimly for a killer after mysterious gunmen shoot her brother-in-law Bill McBride and abduct and rape Laura Ross, Bill's fiancée, while they're out riding with Alafair's daughters, Mary and Ruth. Mary, who suffered a head injury from a stray bullet, struggles to remember a mighty important thought that might help identify the miscreants. Even the Tuckers' once trusted farm hands, Kurt and Micah, fall under suspicion as another attempt is made to end Laura's life. Cousin Scott, the sheriff, is leaving no stone unturned in his official investigation, but he's quietly confident that Alafair will use her skills and intuition to ferret out a solution. Casey gives convincing voice to the early Midwest much as Sharyn McCrumb does for her Appalachians, including period recipes that help to convey the literal flavor of the era. (Oct.)
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From Booklist

On a family-chaperoned horseback ride, Bill McBride is shot dead, and his fiancée is later found ravished and unresponsive, unable to identify her attacker. Bill's niece, Mary Tucker, is grazed by a bullet in the ambush, but all she can remember is that the Fourth of July is important. While Mary slowly sifts through her memories by journaling, her mother, Alafair Tucker, mother to 10 children ranging in age from 22 years to 21 months, decides that to protect her daughter and the rest of her family, she must find her brother-in-law's killer. With an uncanny knack for solving mysteries, the fiercely protective Alafair almost loses her life in the final confrontation with the killer. In this third in a series, set on a farm in 1914 Oklahoma, Casey lovingly portrays the Tuckers' close extended family, immersing the reader in both the domestic aspects and the harsh realities of everyday farm life. O'Brien, Sue

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 217 pages
• Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press (October 15, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590584465
• ISBN-13: 978-1590584460
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,794,126 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Truly Delightful Mystery!, November 26, 2007

By 

Randy Edmond (Casa Grande, AZ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Drop Edge of Yonder (Alafair Tucker Mysteries (Hardcover)) (Hardcover)

Donis Casey has done it again! THE DROP EDGE OF YONDER is the best mystery I've read this year, and I read lots of mysteries. This book has it all: a gripping plot in a great setting with well developed characters. And like the first two books in the Alafair Tucker series, THE OLD BUZZARD HAD IT COMING and HORNSWOGGLED, THE DROP EDGE OF YONDER has lots of heart. In fact, it has more heart than most novels and certainly more than most mysteries. Reading it is like visiting family that you love and have missed.

Like the first two books, THE DROP EDGE OF YONDER is set on the Tucker farm just outside of the small town of Boynton, Oklahoma, a few years after Oklahoma was admitted as a state in 1907. Like the author, I'm a third generation Oklahoman, and my maternal grandparents owned a small farm not far where the story takes place. My mother who grew up on the farm loves the Alafair Tucker books and vouches for their accuracy.

If you read just one mystery this year, make it this one. I assure you that you won't be disappointed.

4.0 out of 5 stars The Farmer's Daughter, November 26, 2007

By 

Ted Feit (Long Beach, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Drop Edge of Yonder (Alafair Tucker Mysteries (Hardcover)) (Hardcover)

In the year 1914 in a little town in Oklahoma, a group of young people were taking a ride when they spotted a beehive. They stopped in an attempt to gather honey from the hive and a shot rang out, killing one. His fiancée was abducted and later found in a state of hysteria. Young Mary's scalp was creased by a bullet and she was unconscious. Thus, the beginning of a simple tale, recounting an event which led up to the incident.

In this, the author's third novel, set in small farms and towns in Oklahoma, Alafair Tucker, mother to 12 children including Mary, shows true grit in trying to protect her family and seeking answers to the crime. Meanwhile Mary has to emerge from the fog she is in and recount past stories bit by bit to come up with the clues to identify the killer. She writes in her journal, recounting stories told at the Fourth of July celebration. With each entry more disclosures are told in the novel.

Descriptions of the new state of Oklahoma and life at the turn of the 20th century are real, and the language spoken is authentic frontier-speak. Life, as it was lived at the time, is described with all the hardship and primitiveness that existed at the start of World War I out in the West. If this novel is any indication, maybe we should go back and look at the previous two entries, which we missed.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent atmospheric historical mystery, October 16, 2007

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Drop Edge of Yonder (Alafair Tucker Mysteries (Hardcover)) (Hardcover)

In 1914 Oklahoma Alafair Tucker thinks the summer so far has been quiet, dry and hot on the farm as she and her spouse Shaw raise their horde of offspring. Life can be hard as she knows having two children of the twelve she birthed die on her, but right now Alafair kicks off her shoes having a child under one year old after a seven year gap.

However, the idyll of the summer of 14 ends when someone kills her half-brother-in-law Bill McBride and rapes his fiancée Laura Ross. With them riding at the time were Alafair's daughters, twenty-one years old Mary whose head was grazed by a bullet and fifteen years old Ruth. Mary suffers from partial amnesia. The killer-rapist tries to murder Laura. Sheriff Scott Tucker officially leads the investigation, but knows his cousin by marriage Alafair will solve the case as she has done before (see HORNSWOGGLED and THE OLD BUZZARD HAD IT COMING); he needs to stay near her and keep her safe.

As with the previous Tucker tales, the atmosphere is incredible so much so that the audience will believe they are spending the summer of 1914 on the Tucker farm. The whodunit is cleverly devised as Alafair knows Mary has the truth if she can only remember. Fans of historical mysteries will appreciate this superb Sooner story as it is Oklahoma just before WW I that makes Donis Casey's saga an excellent read.

Harriet Klausner