The Drop Edge of Yonder

Donis Casey
Poisoned Pen Press (2007)
ISBN 15905844605
Reviewed by Joanne Benham for Reader Views (5/07)

One August evening in 1914, Alafair Tucker waved goodbye to her daughters Mary, 21, and Ruth, 15, as they rode off with their uncle, Bill McBride, to act as chaperones as he took his fiancé, Laura Ross, for a horseback ride.  Alafair, normally a most astute woman, had no premonition of the tragedy her family would encounter before the day was over, a murder and abduction so horrendous that it threatened the very fabric of their community, pitting neighbor against neighbor as the murderer stalked his next victim.

As Sheriff Scott Tucker mounts an investigation, Alafair begins her own investigation.  She knew that the answer to the murderer’s identity was locked up in Mary’s head, but it was so distressing to her that she could not voice it.  Mary started writing in her journal, bits and pieces of memories that came to her.  Whenever possible, Alafair would seek out Mary’s journal and read it.  While hating to betray Mary’s trust, Alafair knew she had to do it, that the answer to the mystery would finally be revealed in Mary’s writing.

Meanwhile, the murderer is still stalking the survivors, determined to remove any witnesses to his crime. 

The story is told in real time as well as in flashbacks revealed in Mary’s journal.  At first they don’t seem to make any sense, just memories of get-togethers between the young men and women of the town, but slowly the journal begins to zero in on one incident, a horse-buying trip to Waco undertaken every year, but the past year had been different and that realization finally reveals the truth and uncovers the murderer just as he is poised to strike his next victim.

The mother, Alafair, believes she knows best and her children are going to do what she tells them or else.  She’s actually very annoying, but I kept reminding myself that she was trying to save her child’s life and it made her actions palatable.

I guessed the murderer’s identity about halfway through the book as well as the mystery of the missing daughter, but all in all in was a nice book, fun to sit down and read with your coffee.  But there was one mystery I had to read through to the end to solve, and that was what the heck “The Drop Edge of Yonder” meant.  So relax, you’ll find out.   

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