Sheriff Dan Rhodes Mystery series by Bill Crider (#3-4,6-9,19-20)
Requirements: epub reader, 5.5 MB
Overview: I was born and brought up in Mexia (that’s pronounced Muh-HAY-uh by the natives), Texas, went to college at The University of Texas and North Texas State University, and taught high school and college classes for many years. In 1992 I retired as Chair of the Division of English and Fine Arts at Alvin Community College, in Alvin, Texas. I’m married to the lovely Judy, and we have two grown children, Angela, who’s an attorney in San Francisco, and Allen, who’s in the music business in Austin. Other than that, I’m a pretty boring guy.
Genre: Mystery
3. Cursed to Death (1988)
In tiny Blacklin County, Texas, a curse is nothing more than a four-letter word hollered in a barroom or muttered in the heat. So Sheriff Dan Rhodes is more curious than concerned when he dutifully responds to a complaint of witchcraft. When Dr. Samuel Martin, the local dentist—and unpopular landlord—claims he’s been hexed by a tenant, Rhodes does his best to smooth things out between the distressed D.D.S. and the would-be witch. But in two shakes of a black cat’s tail, the good doctor disappears—and his wife turns up bludgeoned to death. For Rhodes, it means there’s a bad moon rising over Blacklin County. And now he’s got to do the voodoo he does best—asking pointed questions and extracting the painful truth from some tight-lipped suspects who also bite…
4. Death on the Move (1989)
Someone in Blacklin County, Texas, is being disrespectful of the dead, and Sheriff Dan Rhodes must put a stop to it. First, there’s the matter of the bodies at Ballinger’s Funeral Home and the apparent misplacing of their valuables; the bereaved are beside themselves. There’d best be immediate action or the bell could toll again, this time for Sheriff Dan’s reputation as the guardian of justice and decency in these parts. As if that weren’t enough to contend with, yet another body tumbles into Sheriff Dan’s path—out of a closet this time and trussed up in most unsavory fashion. More disrespect, but obviously a separate case from the funeral home. Or is it? On the personal front, his fiancée, Ivy Daniel, is supportive as always, but a mystery rears its perplexing head here as well—namely, will Sheriff Dan propose or will he not?
6. Booked for a Hanging (1992)
Sheriff Dan Rhodes is confronted with what seems at first to be a suicide: the body of a man newly arrived in the county is found hanged in the dilapidated building he has taken over for his business. Simon Graham was a rare-book dealer. If it seems unlikely to find such an arcane entrepreneur in this extremely rural and sparsely populated part of Texas, it becomes less strange when it turns out that Graham was more con man than bibliophile. The presumed suicide begins to look more and more like murder when several newcomers swoop down on the scene and try to beat out one another to find a reputedly valuable rare book that Graham was rumored to have among his collection of hardly worthwhile items.
Although Rhodes’ two attenuated and eccentric jailhouse employees have gone overboard for the magic of the department’s new computer, the steady, if put-upon, Rhodes and his clear-eyed observations of human nature have invariably been more useful to the solution of a crime—and that is still true in the case of the hanged book dealer.
7. Murder Most Fowl (1994)
Sheriff Dan Rhodes investigates a murder that may or may not be related to a recent wave of emu-rustling. For an officer of the law, Blacklin County, Texas, used to be pretty peaceful, but now, what with the emu-rustling, cockfights, and protests at the new Walmart store—not to mention murder—the sheriff has his hands full. Hit hard by the collapse of his little hardware store, Elijah Ward has taken to chaining himself to the Walmart doors and generally making a nuisance of himself. And when Lige’s dead body turns up, floating down a river in a portable toilet, Rhodes finds he has quite a case to investigate. What was the connection between Lige and chickens? Lige and the Palm Club? And was he involved in the area’s emu thefts? It seems that raising emus is a booming business, so much so that emu are being stolen left, right, and center by would-be emu ranchers with little respect for the law. From theft to murder, the local crime spree seems unstoppable. But with a little help from the computer foisted on him by aging deputies Hack and Lawton, plus some good old-fashioned detective work, Rhodes just may be able to straighten out his county.
8. Winning Can Be Murder (1996)
It’s been a while since Sheriff Dan Rhodes’ football days, but things haven’t really changed, at least not with state playoffs coming up and excitement for the local high school team heating up to a fever pitch. But then coach Brady Meredith is found shot to death in his car, and his murder leads to troublesome rumors concerning illegal betting, black market steroids and the sheriff’s old nemesis, a biker named Rapper, who has reappeared in Blacklin County. There are too many coincidences for Rhodes’ comfort. Especially when another corpse makes it a second down for a killer determined to lead Sheriff Rhodes into a game of sudden death.
9. Death by Accident (1997)
Texas Sheriff Dan Rhodes’ cases usually concern the bad boys of rural Blacklin County or the slightly wacky citizens who are causing trouble that tends to be funny rather than criminal. But although at first the dead man floating in the old swimming pool at the edge of town seems to have been an accident victim—a staggering drunk tumbling into the water—Rhodes and his small but colorful staff soon uncover murder. It’s the second strange death in two weeks. The other was that of John West, killed when he blew up carrying a gasoline can across a field. But where was the Cherokee wagon John was carrying the gas to? And why is his widow so jaunty? West was a solid citizen; Pep Yeldell, the swimming pool decedent, was a man with many enemies. In his quiet way, Rhodes goes about looking for a connection and a killer—a quest that takes Rhodes, no athlete now in spite of his wife’s efforts to keep him on a diet of little meat and lots of greens, up a tree and puts him at the mercy of a vicious killer.
19. Murder of a Beauty Shop Queen (2012)
Dan Rhodes, sheriff of Blacklin County, Texas, is called to the Beauty Shack, where the young and pretty Lynn Ashton has been found dead, bashed over the head with a hairdryer. The owner said Lynn had gone to the salon late to meet an unknown client. There was a lot of gossip going on about Lynn before her death, but no one seems to really know much about her, or they’re not telling Rhodes.
Lynn was known to flirt, and it’s possible an angry wife or jilted lover had something to do with her death. The salon owner suspects two outsiders who have been staying in an abandoned building across the street. While he investigates the murder, Rhodes must also deal with the theft of copper and car batteries, not to mention a pregnant nanny goat that is terrorizing the town.
20. Compound Murder (2013)
Before classes start one morning, the body of English instructor Earl Wellington is found outside the building of the community college. Wellington was clearly involved in a struggle with someone and has died as a result. Sheriff Dan Rhodes pursues and arrests Ike Terrell, a student who was fleeing the campus. Ike’s father is Able Terrell, a survivalist who has withdrawn from society and lives in a gated compound. He’s not happy that his son has chosen to attend the college, and he’s even less happy with the arrest.
Rhodes discovers that Wellington and Ike had had a confrontation over a paper that Wellington insisted Ike plagiarized. Wellington also had had a confrontation with the dean and was generally disliked by the students. As the number of suspects increases, it’s up to Rhodes to solve the murder while also dealing with an amusing but frustrating staff, a professor who wants to be a cop, and all the other normal occurrences that can wreak havoc in a small town.
Download Instructions:
http://destyy.com/wLxFuU
Mirror:
http://destyy.com/wLxFu2
Books 1-2,10-12,15,17-18 here: http://forum.mobilism.org/viewtopic.php?f=1294&t=676593&hilit=Bill+Crider
Book 5 here: http://forum.mobilism.org/viewtopic.php?f=1294&t=750627&hilit=Bill+Crider
Book 21 here: http://forum.mobilism.org/viewtopic.php?f=1294&t=863843&hilit=Bill+Crider
updated zippyshare link 2-1-15
