A Dry Spell

Terri L. Lyons is an elementary-school librarian, who also teaches in
the Distance Education Department and specializes in readers’ advisory
services at Mohawk College.

Goodlands, North Dakota, seems to be the perfect place to farm and raise
a family, until four years without rain cripples the community. As a
result of the drought, the town’s bank manager, Karen Grange, has been
forced to foreclose on her neighbors and friends. In the third year of
the drought, she wrote a letter to a rainmaker profiled on the Weather
Station. When Tom Keatley, the rainmaker, finally arrives in Goodlands,
his senses tell him that a malign supernatural force is responsible for
the drought.

We learn that the force is the evil spirit of a dead teenager whose
home base happens to be Karen’s house. What we don’t learn is why
this demon is bent on destroying Goodlands, Karen, and Tom. This and
other unanswered questions undermine what is otherwise an effective
page-turner. Moloney knows how to build suspense and create believable
characters, but her failure to tie up loose ends makes A Dry Spell a
frustrating read.