REVIEW: CRYING BLOOD by Donis Casey

Welcome to day four of Moonlighting for Murder, sponsored by Jen's Book Thoughts. This week The Drowning Machine is celebrating amateur sleuth Alafair Tucker, the star of a five-book (so far) series by Donis Casey.

Just a reminder that each day I'm posing a trivia question, and each correct answer will earn you a chance in a drawing (which will be held on Saturday, April 9) for a copy of the newest book in this series, Crying Blood, as well as a $25 gift certificate from Warwick's, a fabulous indie book store. You still have time to answer Tuesday's and Wednesday's questions, and you will find today's question at the bottom of this post.

 CRYING BLOOD

Oklahoma, 1915. Shaw Tucker and his sons, along with Shaw's brother James and James's two sons, are on a hunting trip. When one of the dogs brings in a boot full of old bones instead of a quail, the trip goes south for Shaw in a hurry. The bones belong to an old skeleton that has a bullet hole between the eye sockets. Things begin to happen that no one witnesses but Shaw: snakes out of season, moccasin-clad feet moving through the camp at night, and a voice on the forest wind that twice calls Shaw's name. Shaw isn't a believer in superstitious woo-woo, but he doesn't like to think he's losing his mind either. But when an enigmatic young Creek boy who calls himself Crying Blood is murdered in Shaw's stable -- his locked stable -- Shaw is determined to find the killer. Because Crying Blood isn't really a Creek name, it's a condition of life being out of balance until the dead receive justice.

At the heart of this book are the issues stemming from the treatment of Indians, or Native Americans if you prefer. The lack of humanity that led to the Trail of Tears is well known, but the manner in which land was later allotted to individual Indians in Oklahoma is less familiar. Casey lays it out in simple terms and, without once climbing on a soapbox, reveals the land allotments were either a legal attempt to destroy the communal nature of the tribes, a way of forcing the Indians to live more like the whites, or that that was the unintended consequence.

Although my amateur sleuth for Moonlighting for Murder is Shaw's wife, Alafair, she has a more limited role in this book than in the four previous. Her fans will find her presence sufficient so that no one will suffer withdrawal, but this book really belongs to Shaw. He's been present in the other books, but was not as sharply defined as here, where the reader sees more of his temper, learns more about his childhood, and discovers that he can be pushed to cross legal, possibly even moral, lines in pursuit of justice. Even rough justice.

As always, the author highlights a bygone way of life that calls forth for the reader a nostalgia for simpler times, as well as a deep gratitude that few of us have to do our own hog butchering or many of the other labor-intensive chores of 1915.

THE CONTEST 

A very popular doll was created in 1915 and is still marketed by Hasbro today. This doll has been the basis of books, comics, movies, a tv series, and in 2002 this doll was inducted into the National Toy  Hall of Fame. The doll's brother later joined her there in 2007. What's the name of this doll?

Each correct answer earns a place in Saturday's drawing, so be sure check out the other trivia questions this week. And a reminder once again that Jen is running a comment contest all her own for Moonlighting for Murder, and here's how it works:  Each comment left at any of the theme week posts by the participating bloggers by Friday at midnight (Eastern) enters you into her drawing for a book prize pack. The prize pack will include at least a bag, two books, a small notebook and a bookmark. Other various goodies may also be included as surprise items. So: comment here often, at Jen's Book Thoughts often, and at all the participating blogs.

February: Hearts and Darts

Time to look back at what I read this past month. Thomas Perry's Runner, Joe Barone's The Body In the Record Room, and Ken Bruen's Sanctuary were all good enough for me to rise above my blogging apathy and write reviews for. Hearts to them. A big heart to Earl Emerson's Cape Disappointment. I plan to write a review for it as soon as I catch up on my sleep. I was up nearly all night finishing that one, which I think is Emerson's best book yet, even better than Into the Inferno.


Books I should have written reviews for because they deserve that good things be said and written about them:
Rogues Males: Conversations & Confrontations About the Writing Life by Craig McDonald. His interviews with the likes of James Crumley, Daniel Woodrell, Kinky Friedman, et al, are remarkably candid and conversational in tone, rather than interrogatory. If you are a writer, there's something to learn from these men. If you are a reader, you'll find them entertaining, particularly if you are familiar with their work. One of my favorite quotes (and there are too many to post) is from Kinky Friedman: "When you publish as many books as I do, Craig, well, that's an index of an empty life. That's all it can mean." What do you think, is Kinky right or wrong or -- as I think -- both?

Kindness Goes Unpunished by Craig Johnson. When Wyoming Sheriff Walt Longmire visits his daughter in Philadelphia he ends up spending his time trying to find who bashed his only child's head in. Johnson has such a good internal knowledge of his characters and is so comfortable with them that he doesn't hesitate to take them out of their milieu or to put them in awkward social situations. Johnson is so good at his job that he makes it look effortless. But if it were really that easy we could all do it. Truth is, few can.



Books I enjoyed but for one reason or another I didn't fall in love with them:
Spade & Archer by Joe Gores, a prequel (to Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon) that explains how Spade and the doomed Archer became partners, how Effie Perine became Sam's gal Friday, as well as provides three interrelated mysteries for Sam to solve. Kudos to Gores, the guy has major cojones, because anyone who tackles the icon that is Sam Spade is setting himself up as a human pincushion. That Gores mostly succeeds is due to his own talent and skills. For me, oddly enough, it is the third mystery of the book that doesn't work as well for me as the previous sections. Odd, because that's the section of the book where I understand Gores worked from some original Dash Hammett material or ideas. And while Gores is a fine writer -- not that he needs me or anyone else to tell him that -- I still missed that cold camera's-eye view that Hammett brought to his writing. Gores sometimes captured that detachment, sometimes not. And I enjoyed the first two-thirds of the book enough that I hope he gives us another Sam Spade story, maybe post-Falcon.

Kate Atkinson's When Will There Be Good News? The author writes elegant prose and creates fascinating characters and interesting situations. As a thriller the story gets a bit top-heavy with coincidence, but really, the writing is so fine that that wasn't a real problem for me. My problem, and I confess it's probably mine alone, was that I couldn't buy into the complex structure of the story. The story follows several characters but never the most intriguing one, the one at the heart of the story. I'm sure that was a deliberate decision by the author and that she had very good reasons for doing so, but for me it didn't work. It masked the attributes of that character so that it became hard for me to empathize or to buy into some of that character's actions late in the book.

Down In the Flood by Kenneth Abel. Even though Hurricane Katrina is bearing down on New Orleans, lawyer and former bag man Danny Chaisson can't leave the city until he finds the grand jury witness who's been abducted by a pair of ex-NOPD officers. As a thriller the pace is a little slow for my taste. Abel doesn't create as many subplots or twists as in his previous Danny Chaisson books. But as a day by day account of how difficult survival was in New Orleans in the days following Hurricane Katrina the book is unflinching. The prose is vivid and Danny's unwillingness to let himself off the hook of responsibility makes him one of my favorite NOLA characters. And the climactic scene is a doozy, one worthy of Hollywood.

The Sky Took Him by Donis Casey. In this outing, Alafair Tucker, with oldest and youngest children in tow, ventures to the big town (in 1915) of Enid, Oklahoma, to be a help to her sister as her brother-in-law is dying. Alafair involves herself in the disappearance of a relative. I always enjoy Alafair's perceptions of her world and there are some interesting characters but I thought the revelation of the killer was both predictable and a little contrived. I blame the big city for being a bad influence on Alafair, and I'm sure that as soon as she gets back to the farm she'll be right as rain.


Books that I regret to report I did not enjoy; not to say they were bad books, they have their strong points. Fortunately they all have their fans and do not need my approbation:
Marcus Sakey's Good People was a disappointment to me. The prose and the mechanics of the book are fine, but I never warmed to his main characters, a couple deep in debt, desperate for a baby, who stumble on enough dirty money to fund more attempts at in vitro fertilization (failed IVFs come at $15K a pop). Maybe it's just me, because I've never had a strong compulsion to recreate, but I was rooting against them all the way.

O' Artful Death by Sarah Stewart Taylor includes some fascinating information on funerary art but I had trouble staying awake for the rest of it. At some point the various relationships between characters who did not interest me overwhelmed the mystery.

Super In the City by Daphne Uviller. My mistake, I thought the book was supposed to be a mystery. An honest mistake on my part. It's really chick lit, and as such may be pretty darned good, I haven't read that much in the genre, but this book wasn't to my taste. But if you do like chick lit, this one zips right along and works hard at being clever. It's about one Zephyr Zuckerman who becomes the super in her parents apartment building and starts to discover all the tenants' nasty little secrets. Except most of the story is about crashing parties and dates and relationships and how to get one and, well, what I presume is the usual chick lit fare.