Mary Meigs Atwater (1878-1956) is known for her leadership in reviving interest in handweaving as a form of artistic expression. She was born and raised in Iowa and met her husband as a student in Paris. Her marriage took her throughout the American West before the family settled in Montana. An extensive biography is here: https://documents.alexanderstreet.com/d/1009872269

While she worked to support her family after her husband died during the influenza epidemic, she found time to write a mystery. Crime in Corn-Weather (Houghton Mifflin, 1935; Coachwhip Publications, 2017) was published as Murder in Midsummer in the UK (Victor Gollancz, 1935; independently published, 2022). Unfortunately it seems to be her only one. Atwater capitalized on her youth in Iowa for the setting. Events of the book take place during a stifling hot humid Midwestern summer when the corn plants in the fields surrounding the small town of Keedora were shooting up with long green leaves. Nearly every scene references the miserable sweltering heat.

Well into the Great Depression, the residents were suffering financially. When William Breen, president of the local bank, disappeared, many citizens rejoiced quietly. Breen was known to be unsympathetic to his neighbors and equally hard on his elderly mother and nephew, with whom he lived. His nephew wanted the bonds left in trust for him by his parents so that he could marry but his uncle refused to let go of them. His mother was expected to keep house for him despite the size of the house and her own frail health; Breen was too parsimonious to hire help for her.

No one saw Breen or his car after noon on the day of his disappearance. No evidence of foul play, no ransom note, no message from him. He could have as easily decided to leave on his own as encountering foul play. The bank’s board of directors convened immediately to review its holdings, fearing Breen had taken the bank’s money with him when he left. Fortunately that was not the case.

The sheriff organized search parties, sent missing person notices to the surrounding counties. Reporters looking for a story camped out, waiting for bulletins. The telephone exchange had to hire help to handle all the incoming calls. The quiet little town sold more gasoline, lunches, sodas, and snacks in a couple of days than it had in a month. Breen’s disappearance may not have been good for him, but it was definitely good for his community. And that is the emphasis of the book: how a crime affects everyone around the victim and the culprit.

A surprisingly modern book in many ways, for instance abortion and drug addiction are addressed in forthright terms, something I did not expect of a book published in 1935. The ending was another surprise, gratifyingly creative. The writing is beautiful, polished with vivid imagery. Atwater loved the countryside as much as E. C. R. Lorac did, devoting paragraph after paragraph to descriptions of the landscape, its vegetation, and its inhabitants. The scene with the woodpecker, the only witness to the murder, is an excellent example.

An original piece of crime fiction and a flowing, engaging read. Recommended.

A review of the book by Isaac Anderson can be found in The New York Times in the May 5, 1935, issue, Section BR, Page 16.