Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Death of a Rainmaker | 2018 | Laurie Loewenstein | Buy |
| 2 | Funeral Train | 2022 | Laurie Loewenstein | Buy |
Laurie Loewenstein’s Dust Bowl Mystery series is set in small-town Oklahoma during the 1930s, a time when relentless drought, towering dust storms, and economic collapse defined daily life. Death of a Rainmaker (2018) opens the series with a murder that disrupts an already struggling community, and a local sheriff who must piece together the truth while contending with the practical realities of dust-choked roads, failing crops, and desperate neighbors.
Funeral Train (2022) picks up in the same world, with another crime that tests the limits of justice in a place where survival itself is not guaranteed. Loewenstein’s mysteries are as much about the setting as the crimes. The Dust Bowl is not just background scenery here; it shapes the motives, the opportunities, and the ways people respond when law and order feel like luxuries. These are books for readers who want their mysteries grounded in real history and told with patience and atmospheric detail.