THE BLACKLIN COUNTY
FILES (2012) by Bill
Crider
Reviewed by Barry Ergang
As far as I can remember, my first experience with Bill
Crider’s work came when I read his marvelous, not-to-be-missed “Cranked” in
2007, when it subsequently won the Derringer Award for the best mid-length
short story of 2006. Since then I’ve read a couple of other short stories under
his byline and a western novella, Dead
Man’s Revenge, that he wrote using the pseudonym Colby Jackson. A prolific
writer, he’s the author of several different mystery series as well as horror,
western, and young adult novels. His longest-running mystery series stars Texas
Sheriff Dan Rhodes, who is featured in the six stories in the e-book under
consideration here. (NOTE: the cover says it contains five stories, the title
page six. The title page wins—and so does the reader with the additional
story.)
It opens with “Buster,” which is the name of one of the
elderly, idiosyncratic Miss Onie Calder’s forty or fifty cats. Miss Onie
summons Sheriff Rhodes to her home in a once-
fashionable but now rundown section of the town of Clearview because Buster
is dead. She’s certain that her neighbor, Ralph Ramsdell, whose cat has been
set upon by one of hers, is the poisoner. When he investigates, Rhodes discovers that something much more sinister is
going on.
The Stag BBQ is an annual event in Blacklin County.
"It was a chance for the movers and shakers to get together and drink a
lot of beer, eat some BBQ and homemade ice cream, tell a few dirty jokes, and
do a little gambling....Women weren't allowed. Blacklin County
was becoming more conscious of women's rights by the day, but Blacklin County
was, after all, in Texas,
where a great many men still believed that some activities just weren't
appropriate for women." It's probably just as well, in this case, because
even some of the men get sick when they discover the body of Gabe Tolliver, who
has apparently been "Gored." Sheriff Rhodes doubts the killer was one
of George Newberry's Brahma bulls and must figure out which of the many
attendees wanted Tolliver dead.
A recipe for homemade peach ice cream, Rhodes's
favorite, is appended to the story.
Reverend Alf Anderson helps to restore a community when he turns
the stone building atop Obert's Hill into a nondenominational church and
attracts a congregation of more than three hundred people. One church member,
Ron Eller, does nothing to endear himself to his fellow congregants when he
leases his land to Calame's Crusher, Inc., a gravel company that is mining the
limestone on it. Between the the noise and dust from the rock crusher, and
especially the explosions, Obert residents are sorely unhappy campers:
"They claimed that they [the explosions] were destroying property values,
which were already low, and driving the livestock crazy. They were driving the
citizens crazy, too...." Dan Rhodes has to determine who among them
crucified Eller in "The Man on the Cross."
Arrested for armed robbery, Charles Lathrop is a serious
rival of Adrian Monk's when it comes to obsessive cleanliness. He even cleans
his jail cell, doing a better job of it than Lawton, the jailer, does. The ditched gun
Deputy Ruth Grady finds is probably the weapon Lathrop used to hold up
convenience stores and a Texaco station, though he denies ever having had one,
and it's been thoroughly cleaned. But, as Sheriff Rhodes senses, it's his
obsession that will prove his undoing in "Under the Gun," a story lighter
in tone than those that precede it, and whose solution reminds me of one of the
greatest inverted detective stories I've ever read: Cornell Woolrich's
"One Drop of Blood." (I daren't explain why lest I spoil both of
them.)
Co-authored by Bill's wife Judy Crider, "Chocolate
Moose" concerns the strange death of Mack McAnally at the Round-Up
Restaurant. It appears to be a bizarre accident, but when Sheriff Rhodes gives
the scene a careful examination, he realizes he has a murder to deal with—the
murder of a man who might well have been the most hated person in Blacklin County. "McAnally was, or had been
until only a short while earlier, a bully...He spent his time working in his
yard and harassing any animal that happened to stray onto his property. He had
a pellet gun that he used to shoot at dogs and cats and, rumor had it, even the
occasional human. When he was driving, he would sometimes swerve out of his
lane in an attempt to run over a squirrel or family pet." The list of his
hectoring transgressions is a good deal longer, and many a county resident undoubtedly
has a reason for wanting him dead. It's up to Rhodes
to figure out who that person is.
A recipe for the "World's Best Chicken-Fried
Steak" is appended to the story.
The last and longest story in the collection, "Who
Killed Cock Rogers?" begins with manure and ends with murder. Janelle
Tabor complains to Sheriff Rhodes when
she's splattered with cow manure from one of Ralph Claymore's cattle trucks. The
trucks make their way through Clearview's main street every week on their way
to the auction sale, and have caused problems for other residents as well as for
some of the merchants. There is nothing Rhodes
can really do because the law is on Claymore's side. Thus Mrs. Tabor decides to
talk to Red Rogers about the matter. "Rogers, whose real name was Larry Redden, was
the closest thing Clearview had to a local radio personality. He did just about
everything at KVUE...." One of those things was to host a daily talk show that
"dealt with both national and local issues." He thrives on
controversy. When he invites Mrs. Tabor and two other locals to present their
sides of the argument to Ralph Claymore and one of his truck drivers on the
air, chaos erupts and Rhodes has to hurry to
the station to break up a physical altercation. Two weeks later, Rogers is found shot to
death at one of Ralph Claymore's feed lots, and Rhodes
has a mystery to solve that doesn't lack suspects.
As evidenced by the passages quoted above, Bill Crider's
style is lean and straightforward. It's also leavened with some wonderfully dry
humor. Because of the brevity of every story but the last in this collection,
characterization is very sketchy. But
these are not the kinds of tales in which characterization takes precedence.
They're good old-fashioned short detective stories in which half the fun is
trying to figure out from the clues given who the culprit is—with the exception
of "Under the Gun," in which readers can try to figure out where the
known culprit slips up and so give Rhodes the evidence he needs to turn the
thief over for prosecution.
The Blacklin County
Files, which I can and do enthusiastically recommend, has me looking
forward to reading the Dan Rhodes novel-length mysteries in which, based on my
reading of the aforementioned "Cranked," I'm sure there's greater
character development.
Barry Ergang © 2013
*****
Also awarded a Derringer, this for the best flash fiction
story of 2006, Barry Ergang's work has appeared in numerous publications, print
and electronic. You can find some of it reprinted in Kindle editions and at Smashwords. He
has books for sale from the collection he's accumulated over many years at http://tinyurl.com/ndlbpc7
Please have a look. Barry contributes 20% of the price of books to our fund.
Long familiar to readers via the Sheriff Dan Rhodes series novels Texas author Bill Crider has assembled a short collection of previously published stories featuring the good sheriff Dan Rhodes. The Blacklin County Files: 5 Sheriff Dan Rhodes Stories read just like the good novels in that the stories feature humor, mystery, and the extensive cast of folks that populate the town of Clearview and the surrounding East Texas County of Blacklin.
The small collection opens with the story titled “Buster.”
Miss Onie Calder is quite elderly and someone has killed one of her
many cats. She blames an angry neighbor and wants him arrested for
murder. Things aren’t that simple but the truth will come out.
Sheriff
Rhodes knows things happen in the county that might be technically
against the law. But, Rhodes is not a hard-nosed law and order guy and
is willing to look the other way on certain things as long as nothing
happens. In “Gored”
Sheriff Rhodes has to break his long standing policy of ignoring the
Blacklin County Stagg BBQ. The quiet annual event deep in the woods as a
remote cabin usually has no problems and nothing much happens but this
year the addition of a dead man means Rhodes has to investigate. By the
end of the story if you were not already hungry for barbecue and all
the fixings Bill Crider helpfully includes a recipe for homemade Peach
Ice Cream.
Ron
Eller never did look like Jesus did in all the pictures Sheriff Rhodes
saw as a kid in Sunday school classrooms. The fact that he did not look
like Jesus at all didn’t stop somebody from killing him and wiring him
to a cross. In “The Man on the Cross”
Sheriff Rhodes has to figure who killed Ron Eller and why in a story
that starts the Monday morning after Easter. The suspects are many in
this complex tale of faith, profit, and deceit.
If
you live in Blacklin County and you want real good food--meat and
potatoes kind of food that will stick to your ribs-- you go to the
“Round Up Restaurant.” The sign outside the door makes it clear that
they don’t serve chicken¸ fish or anything vegetarian. In “Chocolate Moose”
authored by Bill and Judy Crider, Sheriff Dan Rhodes has to go to the
restaurant to investigate a death. Pretty much everyone in the county
hated Mack McAnally and for various good reasons. Now he is dead in a
very strange way in one of the dining rooms. It could be an accident or
something more. A good story that finishes up with the killer caught and
a recipe for the “World’s Best Chicken Fried Steak” and includes the
recipe for gravy. Life doesn’t get much better than that.
Environmental
issues are often a theme in the series---especially in recent books. An
environmental problem and controversy are present in the “Who Killed Cock Rogers?”
Shipping live cattle can often be a messy operation with unintended
consequences and controversy. But, nobody expected a murder because of
it.
So,
get yourself some glass bottled Dr. Pepper (plastic bottles and cans
just aren't the same), some peanut butter and cheese crackers, and kick
back for a spell with the Blacklin County Files. Five good short stories
featuring Sheriff Dan Rhodes, his wife Ivy, Deputy Rudy Grady, Jail
Dispatcher Hack Jensen and numerous other good and no so good local
residents. Plenty of humor¸ twists and turns in the cases, and detail
regarding the residents makes The Blacklin County Files: 5 Sheriff Dan Rhodes Stories
yet another fun comfortable cozy style read from award winning author
Bill Crider. Solidly good, just like his novels, author Bill Crider
provides yet more good reading.
The Blacklin County Files: 5 Sheriff Dan Rhodes Stories
Bill Crider
2012
Kindle E-book
Material supplied by the author in exchange for my objective review.
Kevin R. Tipple © 2012, 2013
Posts
3 comments:
Thanks, guys.
Glad to run mine again and glad Barry did his review finally. lol
World's best chicken fried steak? I'm in!
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