Bill Crider

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 Wal-Mart store — not to mention murder — Sheriff Dan Rhodes has his hands full....

In his sixth adventure, 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....

In this latest Sheriff Dan Rhodes adventure, Bill Crider sends the small-town Texas lawman to investigate the apparent theft of a set of false teeth from one of the elderly residents of the Sunny Dale Nursing Home....

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....

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....

While all of Blacklin County, Texas, celebrates the first winning season of high-school football in years, Sherliff Dan Rhodes finds himself dealing with drunken festivities, fights, and the murder of the team's offensive coach....

Lizzie Randall, the preacher's daughter, is murdered. The men of the west Texas town are set on lynching Paco Morales, a Mexican teenager who happened to be in the vicinity at the time. No proof, but, after all, he is only a Mexican....

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....

Six months ago, Ellie was a newlywed, working the dry land in 1880s Texas. Then the desperados came. They raped her and killed her husband, leaving her for dead. But she hunted them down....

In Murder Takes a Break, Galveston, Texas principal investigator Truman Smith loathes missing person cases....

In this enjoyable fourth series entry, Galveston PI Truman Smith (When Old Men Die, 1994) is hired by Lance Garrison to investigate the shooting of a prairie chicken....

Matt seeks out a paranoid visionary who claims to have defeated an entity just like Mr. Dark.....

Hartley Gorman College, in Pecan City, Texas, is hardly a bastion of serious scholarship....

After he failed to find his missing sister, whose remains finally turned up in a bag in an overgrown field, Texas PI Truman Smith retired to become a housepainter on Galveston Island....

Ray Storey plays the role of Kit Carson in Col. A. J. Mahaffey's Authentic Medicine Show, wearing a fringed outfit and doing trick shooting to help the colonel push his Miracle Oil and Indian Vitality Pills....

Professor Carl Burns knew the new dean wasn't going to work out when she bought the two goats...

He's smart, he's attractive, and he has a special vision: whenever he sees the blood marks on a woman - marks only he can see - he knows what he must do....

On a bloody day in 1887, death came to Blanco, Texas....

Bill Kane was going to hang for murdering Ryan's sister....

PI Truman Smith has become a loner after failing to find his sister Jan during a recent search of Galveston Island....