The Sky Took Him: An Alafair Tucker Mystery - Tapa blanda

It's a sad duty that brings Alafair Tucker to Enid, Oklahoma, in the fall of 1915. Her sister Ruth Ann's husband, Lester, is not long for this world, and the family is gathering to send him to his reward. Alafair's eldest daughter Martha has volunteered to come along and care for toddler Grace, freeing Alafair to comfort the soon-to-be-bereaved. But where is Kenneth, her niece's irresponsible husband? When it comes to light that Kenneth has been involved in some shady dealing with Buck Collins, the most ruthless businessman in town, everyone is convinced that Collins has done him in. In fact, no other possibility is considered. But Alafair suspects that things are not so simple, and with help from Martha, Grace, and her sister's cat, she sets about to discover the truth about Kenneth's fate. Over the next few days, Alafair and Martha come face-to-face with blackmail, intimidation, murder, and family secrets that stretch back over twenty years. And in the process, they discover things about each other that will change their relationship forever.

A third generation Oklahoman, Donis Casey and her siblings grew up among their aunts and uncles, cousins, grandparents and great grandparents on farms and in small towns. There they learned the love of family and independent spirit that characterizes the population of that pioneering state. Donis graduated from the University of Tulsa with a degree in English, and earned a Master's degree in Library Science from Oklahoma University. After teaching school for a short time, she enjoyed a career as an academic librarian, working for many years at the University of Oklahoma and at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. The Old Buzzard Had It Coming, her first book, was named the best unpublished mystery of 2004 by The Oklahoma Writers'Federation For the past twenty years, Donis and her husband have lived in Tempe, Arizona.