PREPARING TO LAUNCH by Donis Casey
My tenth Alafair Tucker Mystery, Forty Dead Men, has finally been released into the world. I’ve been gearing up for the personal appearances that go with a launch. This entails a new outfit and a new hair color. I always plan on it entailing a 20 pound weight loss as well, but as yet that goal has never been accomplished. I am particularly proud of this book, which deals with the psychological effects of warfare on a veteran of the First World War. They called it shell shock back then. Now we call it PTSD. George Washington Tucker–a young veteran of the fighting in France during World War I, returns home to the family farm in Oklahoma. Overjoyed, his family gives him space to ponder what to do with his life. Only his tiger mother, Alafair, senses that all is not well with her elder son. One morning when she tidies up his quarters, she finds two cartridge boxes under his pillow, boxes that once contained twenty “dead men” each. All the bullets are missing, save on...