The below is a repeat FFB post as it
first appeared in July 2013. Patti will have the complete list for FFB here later today.
From time to time Barry and I manage
to have read the same book when it comes time to write a review. It has been a
long time since this has happened, but now that Barry has read The Blacklin
County Files it makes another one of our "Double Take Reviews"
possible. Below is Barry's take on the book and then my own from February 2012.
Enjoy the reviews and then go buy the book as it is a good one......
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, 2016
Derringer
Award-winner Barry Ergang’s written work has appeared in numerous publications,
print and electronic. Some of it is available at Amazon
and at Smashwords. His website is http://www.writetrack.yolasite.com/.
And then there is this............
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
January 2012
E-book
ASIN: B006X6QIP6
147 Pages
$2.99
Material supplied by the author in
exchange for my objective review.
Kevin R. Tipple © 2012, 2013, 2016
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2 comments:
Thanks, guys!
Figured we should spread the word again....
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