Finalist for the 2019 Oklahoma Book Awards, Fiction!

"This striking historical mystery . . . is brooding and gritty and graced with authenticity."

-NPR, One of the Best Books of 2018 selected by Maureen Corrigan

"The murder investigation allows Loewenstein to probe into the lives of proud people who would never expose their troubles to strangers. People like John Hodge, the town's most respected lawyer, who knocks his wife around, and kindhearted Etha Jennings, who surreptitiously delivers home-cooked meals to the hobo camp outside town because one of the young Civilian Conservation Corps workers reminds her of her dead son. Loewenstein's sensitive treatment of these dark days in the Dust Bowl era offers little humor but a whole lot of compassion."

-New York Times Book Review

"This richly detailed historical mystery brings the Dust Bowl to life, with the hardscrabble farms and semi-rural community barely coping with the losses of farms and local businesses. This evocative first volume in a new series should appeal to readers of Larry D. Sweazy's 'Marjorie Trumaine' mysteries or Donis Casey's Oklahoma-set 'Alafair Tucker' books. Fans of narrative nonfiction, including Timothy Egan's The Worst Hard Time, the book that inspired this work, may also want to give it a try.

-Library Journal, STARRED Review, One of the Best Books of 2018 (Crime Fiction)

"Set in Vermillion, Okla., in 1935, this superb series launch from Loewenstein . . . beautifully captures the devastation of the land and people in the dust bowl."

-Publishers Weekly, STARRED Review, Pick of the Week for October 8, 2018

"Loewenstein movingly describes the events and the people, from farm eviction auctions and hobo villages to Dish Nights at the movies. She vividly brings to life a town filled with believable characters, from a young woman learning her own worth to the deputy sheriff figuring out where his loyalties lie. This warm and evocative novel captures a time and place, with well-researched details shown through the lives and circumstances of one American town."

-Kirkus Reviews

Selected as a Great Group Reads pick for 2019!

Included in Entropy Magazine's October/November Small Press Roundup

Included in the New York Public Library's 12 Days of Bookness 2018/12 New Works of Fiction

"The plot is compelling, the character development effective and the setting carefully and accurately designed . . . I have lived in the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma; I know about wind and dust . . . Combining a well created plot with an accurate, albeit imagined, setting and characters that 'speak' clearly off of the page make Death of a Rainmaker a pleasant adventure in reading."

-The Oklahoman

"Set in an Oklahoma small town during the Great Depression, this launch of a promising new series is as vivid as the stark photographs of Dorothea Lange."

-South Florida, One of Oline Cogdill's Best Mystery Novels of 2018

"After a visiting con artist is murdered during a dust storm, a small-town sheriff and his wife pursue justice in 1930s Oklahoma. A vivid evocation of life during the Dust Bowl; you might need a glass of water at hand while reading Loewenstein's novel."

-Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Included in Holiday Gift Books Roundup, Editor's Pick

"If you liked The Dry by Jane Harper or love historical mysteries with strong settings, try Death of a Rainmaker: A Dust Bowl Mystery by Laurie Loewenstein."

-Vernon Area Public Library