DONIS CASEY: Write Errant

Alafair Tucker is a woman in her early forties who lives with her husband Shaw and their ten children on a prosperous farm in Muskogee County, Oklahoma, during the booming 1910s.  She never sets out to solve murders, but all those pesky kids keep getting involved in unsavory situations, and need their mother to help get them out of trouble.  Fortunately, Alafair is the kind of woman who will do anything, legal or not so legal, for her kids.

But how, you may ask, can a farm wife and mother of ten solve murder mysteries? After all, she has to fix dinner. She doesn’t have the freedom or the inclination to go about gathering forensic evidence.  She leads a life that is so busy that it wouldn’t be realistic if she could easily drop everything on a whim and go off to gather clues. But Alafair knows everybody in the county and doesn’t have a second thought about worming information out of anybody who crosses her path.  She has her army of grown and half-grown children to snoop for her.  She knows the postmistress, the neighbors, and the ladies at church; a web of women who are willing to help her.  Her information network is better than the sheriff’s. She has a way of knowing things about people, too, almost a sixth sense that comes from having so many children. She doesn’t believe for a minute that being loving makes her weak or vulnerable. Love gives her teeth and claws. It makes her dangerous. It makes her a remarkable sleuth.