Funeral train /

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

*Winner of a Will Rogers Silver Medallion Award for Western Mystery

*A finalist for the 2023 Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award for Best Historical

"For Temple Jennings, the small-town Oklahoma sheriff who returns in Laurie Loewenstein's engaging new Dust Bowl-era mystery, Funeral Train, day-to-day matters have become challenging . . . Reading Funeral Train feels like being catapulted back in time to experience the 1930s at an almost unbearably visceral level." -New York Times Book 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 that lie just beneath the surface of the town's dusty streets." -Washington Post, one of "Five New Thrillers to Kick Off Your Fall Reading"

Already suffering the privations of the 1930s Dust Bowl, an Oklahoma town is further devastated when a passenger train derails-flooding its hospital with the dead and maimed. Among the seriously wounded is Etha, wife of Sheriff Temple Jennings. Overwhelmed by worry for her, the sheriff must regain his footing to investigate the derailment, which rapidly develops into a case of sabotage.

The following night, a local recluse is murdered. Temple has a hunch that this death is connected to the train wreck. But as he dissects the victim's life with help from the recuperating and resourceful Etha, he discovers a tangle of records that make a number of townsfolk suspects in the murder.

Temple's investigations take place against the backdrop of the Great Depression-where bootlegging, petty extortion, courage, and bravado play out in equal measure.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Sheriff Temple Jennings of Vermillion, OK, is eager to see his wife, Etha, after her six-day visit to St. Louis. When the train she's on is involved in a wreck, he loses all control until his deputy reminds him he has to take charge, and start acting like the sheriff, not a panicked husband. After finding Etha in the hospital, he teams up with the railroad detective to find the cause of the accident. It doesn't take long to discover someone sabotaged the tracks, but during the Depression, with so many drifters, it will take a while to find the perpetrator. Someone, though, has a clue, which causes Temple to suspect a link between the train wreck and a local murder. Several crimes lead Temple and Etha, along with the deputies, to piece together a story of desperation and violence. VERDICT The sequel to Death of a Rainmaker (an LJ Best Book of 2018), is just as atmospheric. The anguish and struggles of the Dust Bowl and Depression years are vividly depicted in this historical mystery.--Lesa Holstine

Publishers Weekly Review

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. Sheriff Temple Jennings is used to dealing with balky stray cows and occasional moonshiners. Then his comfortable routine is shattered by a passenger train derailment that turns out to have been caused by sabotage. Eccentric but shrewd railroad detective Claude Steele is soon on the scene to figure out who could have been angry and mean enough to do such a thing. Meanwhile, Temple has to solve the murder of Ruthie-Jo Mitchem, "who made it her business to know everything possible about everyone else." Ruthie-Jo's death may be related to the train wreck--or to her snooping into her neighbors' business. He also frets about his wife, Etha, who was severely injured when the train crashed, and about his responsibilities to the vulnerable people who depend on him. 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. (Oct.)

Booklist Review

Set in rural Oklahoma in 1935, when America was still deep in the throes of the Great Depression, Loewenstein's latest (following Death of a Rainmaker, 2018) combines a riveting mystery with an eye-opening look at the social milieu of the time. Laced with suspense, pathos, and violence, it's also an affecting portrayal of what makes humans behave the way they do. Temple Jennings, sheriff in Vermillion, Oklahoma, is usually busy rounding up stray cattle and closing down stills, but when a passenger train derails nearby, he's first on the scene. It's mass carnage, with many dead and injured. Temple soon discovers that the derailment was no accident--someone tampered with the rail switches. Then a local woman is found strangled near the tracks. Was she killed because she saw who caused the derailment? Murder is well outside Temple's wheelhouse, but he's both savvy and tenacious, and, with the help of a bumptious but persistent railway detective, he plows forward. This is a wonderfully evocative historical mystery, its Dust Bowl bleakness offset by hope and humor.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Laurie Loewenstein is the author of the novels Unmentionables and Death of a Rainmaker , the first in the Dust Bowl Mystery series and a finalist for a 2019 Oklahoma Book Award. She teaches at Wilkes University's Maslow Family Graduate Program in Creative Writing and is a fifth-generation Midwesterner.