In her gripping follow-up to the widely acclaimed Dust Bowl Mystery Death of a Rainmaker, Laurie Loewenstein brings 1930s Oklahoma evocatively to life."Set in 1935, 'smack in the crosshairs of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl,' Loewenstein's excellent sequel to 2018's Death of a Rainmaker continues the saga of life in the small town of Vermillion, Okla . . . Loewenstein gives a rich sense of the period and place, and dramatically shows how hard times can bring out the best in some and the worst in others. Historical regional mysteries don't get much better than this."—Publishers Weekly, starred review"Loewenstein handles the investigatory details well enough, but the book's richer rewards are its finely rendered portraits of small-town life under trying circumstances. She creates a vivid cast of gossips and cranks, loners and busy bodies. Some are lovable, some are not. All are connected to the secrets...

"Laurie Loewenstein's vivid Death of a Rainmaker is at once an engrossing yarn, an elegant inquiry into human desperation, and a portrait of Depression-era America so searingly authentic that the topsoil practically blows off each page."—Louis Bayard, author of The Pale Blue Eye"Reading Death of a Rainmaker is like slipping through time right into a 1930s black-and-white movie. Suddenly you live in Jackson County, Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl, and you know what the cinema, hardware store, and courthouse look like. The townspeople are your family, and you care so deeply about what happens to them that you can't tear your eyes from the pages of this book. It's odd for a story about a murder to be gentle and generous, but this one is. I fell in love with everyone in town—except of course those who turned out to be trouble. Laurie Loewenstein has a knack for writing the early twentieth century. I sure hope this is a series, because...