The Wrong Hill to Die On is a gentle, gracious mystery, yet it takes on the hate-filled issues of racism and anti-immigration phobias. It also focuses on the themes of family strength, mother-child bonds, and the makings of durable marriages. All that but it isn’t the least bit heavy or preachy—Donis Casey manages to slip worthwhile ideas into her engaging plot without weighing down the tale. You’ll be turning the pages quickly.
The story opens with Alafair, the mother of ten and “sleuth” of Casey’s mystery series, traveling with her daughter and her husband Shaw from Oklahoma to Tempe, Arizona to cure their daughter Blanche’s respiratory illness. Alafair’s younger sister Elizabeth lives there with her lawyer husband. Unlike today, when the air in Tempe is a miasma of trouble for the respiratorially challenged, the air in 1916 offered genuine help, as it does for Blanche, who quickly begins to recover. That’s the good news.
The bad news shows up in an irrigation ditch outside Elizabeth’s house. Alafair comes upon the dead body of a young handyman of Mexican origins. Everyone knew the handsome ladies’ man, but no one knows why he’s dead. Sorting out who killed him poses many challenges, especially in a year when Pancho Villa is raiding the border, raising fears of Mexican spies in the small community of Tempe. Can the Anglos trust their long time neighbors? What about the Yaqui Indians who have escaped the violence in their homeland and settled in their own community of Guadalupe—not such a far drive in terms of miles from Tempe in Elizabeth’s Hupmobile, but as Alafair discovers, as far away as another world.
Then there’s the famous movie actor Hobart Bosworth and a “cast of glamorous actors and actresses” who film a movie right there in Tempe—in Elizabeth’s opinion, the most exciting thing that ever happened in their sleepy town. But the dead man had been working as an extra on the set. Did he inspire a killer?
Evidence related to the murder shows up at the house of Elizabeth’s best friend Cindy whose husband has been treating her with singular insensitivity. Is he a murderer as well as a first rate cad?
Alafair is drawn in to the mystery whether she wants to be or not—though as Shaw knows, she can’t resist. She turns her innate understanding of human nature and her sharp mind and powers of observation to the problem. Elizabeth may find the puzzle an interesting distraction from her boring life, but Alafair knows the stakes are tragic and profound. That won’t keep you from smiling as you enjoy this book.