My name is Dovey Coe and I reckon it don't matter if you like me or not. I’m here to lay the record straight, to let you know them folks saying I done a terrible thing are liars. I aim to prove it, too. I hated Parnell Caraway as much as the next person, but I didn’t kill him.
Dovey Coe says what’s on her mind, so it’s no secret that she can’t stand Parnell Caraway. Parnell may be the son of the richest man in town, but he’s mean and snobby, and Dovey can’t stand the fact that he’s courting her sister, Caroline, or the way he treats her brother, Amos, as if he were stupid just because he can’t hear.
So when Parnell turns up dead, and Dovey’s in the room where his body is discovered, she soon finds herself on trial for murder. Can the outspoken Dovey sit still and trust a city slicker lawyer who’s still wet behind the ears to get her out of the biggest mess of her life?
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Parnell Caraway, son of the richest man in Indian Creek, NC is the biggest bully in town. Having grown up reaping the benefits of his father's wealth (his father owning the general store as well as most of the residential property in town), Parnell breezes through life on his sense of entitlement. The one major burr in his side is the Coe family, one of the few families in town who own their home & surrounding property outright. Parnell has a romantic interest in the Coe's eldest daughter, Caroline so he reluctantly plays nice with the rest of the family, at least outwardly. Caroline's younger sister, Dovey (the story's protagonist) doesn't buy the act. She's been on the receiving end of Parnell's taunts when no one else was around, and she's seen how mean he is to her brother's dogs, not to mention never giving her brother any respect or even acknowledging his presence most days. Dovey, though not a fan of Parnell, tries not to pay too much attention to him, focusing her attention on her deaf / mute older brother Amos. Amos, because of his disability, gets mistaken for slow in the head a lot, thus getting a strong dose of taunts and bullying. Dovey, tomboy through and through, gets in a lot of faces keeping the bastards off her brother. As for Amos, he's actually able to read and write pretty well, his favorite author being Mark Twain. He struck me as the "gentle giant" type.
From down the mountain I could hear the bell Mama rang to bring me in when I'd gone out past the yard and she needed me home to help her. By the look of the sun, I'd say it was close to suppertime. Lately, Mama had me setting the table every night with a full complement of forks and spoons and knives so that I would know the proper thing to do should I find myself in high society. As far as I was concerned, where I sat was high society enough, there with my brother and the birds and every wild thing.
Caroline Coe has plans to get out of town, attend teacher's college and try to see at least some of the world outside of Indian Creek. Parnell doesn't put much stock in Caroline's dreams, much like the way she doesn't pay much attention to his flirtations. At least not at first. When Parnell gets word that Caroline has her college tuition paid and will be leaving town for sure, he amps up his attentions and for some reason, she allows and even somewhat encourages him -- maybe because she figures she's on her way out of town, no time for anything serious.
Everyone knows that a little learning is wasted on someone as pretty as Caroline Coe. Come on, Caroline. Say you'll stay here and be my pretty thing. Don't go waste yourself on being a teacher.
>> Parnell Caraway
Real winner there, huh? Well, when Parnell doesn't take the hint and tries to propose to Caroline (in front of the entire town, btw) the day before she's set to leave, he lets that little gem of a quote go as part of his proposal and much to his shock and awe she turns him down! It's then that the reader sees that Parnell is not only a spoiled brat / bully of a man, he's also a mean-hearted sore loser. To get back at Caroline, Parnell puts together this ruse where he steals one of Amos' dogs and then tells Dovey to come get it because it tried to attack him. Dovey feels like something is fishy with this story but meets up with him anyway. She finds that he indeed does have one of Amos' dogs, tied up in the back of the Caraway's general store. This meeting quickly turns pretty sinister, there's a scuffle when Dovey realizes what Parnell brought her there for, she blacks out in the confusion, wakes up to find Parnell dead on the floor next to her. She's pretty sure it wasn't her that killed him but Mrs. Caraway comes to the store looking for her son and finds Dovey there next to the body so in a matter of days, little pre-teen Dovey finds herself the center of a murder trial. Will the truth come out in time?
I loved Dowell's writing style. Though the story is written in Dovey's voice, a light mountain dialect, it's not at all hard to follow. I never expected Parnell to get as dark and mean-spirited as he did but having that element did move the story along nicely. My one issue with this story is I wished it was longer! The characters sometimes felt as if they could have benefited from a little more development, and the trial portion felt a little rushed to me. Otherwise, a very fun story with the adorable Dovey, who is very much reminiscent of Scout from Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird.
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