Donis Casey's "Hell With the Lid Blown Off," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Hell With the Lid Blown Off by Donis Casey.

The entry begins:

My sleuth, Alafair Tucker, is a woman in her early forties, who lives with her husband Shaw and their ten children on a prosperous farm in Oklahoma in the early part of the Twentieth Century. She never sets out to solve murders, but all those pesky kids keep getting involved in unsavory situations and need their mother to get them out of trouble. Fortunately for me, Alafair is the kind of woman who will literally do anything, legal or not so legal, for her kids.

Many of the details of Alafair’s life on the farm, such as using kerosine-soaked corn cobs to start a fire, come from my mother, who grew up on a farm during the Depression. Many of the incidents related actually happened, both in my family and my husband’s (the less savory ones, he points out).

I made a point of not physically describing my main character, Alafair, except in generalities, even though I have a clear picture of her in my head. After seven books, a few details about her appearance have slipped out. She has dark hair that she can’t do anything with. She has dark eyes and a sun-browned complexion. She’s middle-sized. I didn’t create Alafair or any of the other characters with actors in mind. Alafair and her family are all based on friends or relatives of mine, living and dead.

But that doesn’t keep readers from casting my movie for me.

One fan of the series suggested to me that Alafair should be played by Kathy Bates. Not two weeks later, another woman thought Joan...[read on]

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The Page 69 Test: Hell with the Lid Blown Off.

My Book, The Movie: Hell With the Lid Blown Off.

--Marshal Zeringue