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. For Rhodes, it means there's a bad moon rising over Blacklin County.

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 enemiesIn 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.

Edgar & Shamus Award nominee Bill Crider's startlingly original Western crime novel.On a bloody day in 1887, death came to Blanco, Texas. Before the sun went down, the livery stable was torched, an outlaw gang robbed the bank, two men were killed, and young newlywed Ellie Taine was raped. One of the dead was the man who planned the robbery—the son of dying, legendary Texas Ranger Jonathan Crossland—the other was Ellie's husband, an innocent bystander.Ellie is dead inside. She takes a gun and rides out after the desperadoes, cold-blooded and fearless, determined to kill the men who ruined her life. She's joined by Jonathan Crossland, who only has days left to live...but would rather die in his saddle making amends for his son than rot in his bed. Together, Ellie and Jonathan set out on a mission of vengeance and justice, one that neither of them expects nor hopes to survive.

PI Truman Smith has become a loner after failing to find his sister Jan during a recent search of Galveston Island. He jogs on the Seawall, plays with his cat, and reads lots of Faulkner books. Then an old high school football buddy, Dino, asks him to find a young girl named Sharon. As Tru begins his investigation, dead bodies begin to appear and Tru himself wrapped up in a dark mystery.

Strangers are moving into Blacklin County, and none of them is any stranger than Seepy Benton, a math teacher whom the county judge suspects is a wild-eyed radical. Benton and Max Schwartz, who has opened a music store, are among the students in the Citizens’ Sheriff’s Academy, which seemed like a good idea when Sheriff Dan Rhodes presented it to the county commissioners. However, when a mobile home explodes and a dead body is found, the students become the chief suspects, and the commissioners aren’t happy. To make matters worse, there’s another murder, and one of Rhodes’s old antagonists returns with his partner in crime to cause even more trouble. As always in Blacklin County, there are plenty of minor annoyances to go along with the major ones. For one thing, there’s a problem with the county’s Web page. The commissioners blame Rhodes, who knows nothing about the Internet but is supposed to be overseeing their online presence. Then there’s the illegal alcohol being sold in a local restaurant. It was produced in a still that Rhodes discovered after the explosion of the mobile home, and he’s sure it has some connection to the murders. It’s another fun ride with genre veteran Bill Crider, and, once again, it’s up to Sheriff Dan Rhodes to save the day before Blacklin County becomes the crime capital of Texas.

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.

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. Reason and/or conscience work on most of the would-be lynchers, so that, in the end justice is served. The list of suspects grows to include almost everyone in the story, thus providing an agreeable tangle of clues. 

An Anthony Award-winning AuthorThere hasn't been any rain to speak of in Sheriff Dan Rhodes's Texas county for nearly two months. Rhodes does see a good side, though: He hasn't had to mow his yard in weeks, and the coming Fourth of July fireworks have been canceled. Besides, one spark in the wrong place in this weather, and the whole county could go up in flames. Although the county survives, a wooden shack does burn to the ground with the owner's body inside -- and not even a sparkler was anywhere near the premises.

THE TRUMAN SMITH PRIVATE EYE SERIES: Truman Smith operates on Galveston Island, not far from Houston. The first book in the series, Dead on the Island, was nominated for a Shamus Award by the Private-Eye Writers of America.||||In Murder Takes a Break, Galveston, Texas principal investigator Truman Smith loathes missing person cases because they either end up badly for his clients, or the person does not want to be found. So only as a personal favor to his friend Dino would Tru accept the case of missing college student, Randall Kirbo, who disappeared in the area while on Spring break nine months ago.||||After sifting the facts from the very minimal police investigation on the case, Tru tracks Randall to a house owend by a local vice queen, Big Al. Another kid who attended the same party was later found dead on the beach As the investigation unfolds, it becomes clear that this is anything but a typical missing person's case, and the party - and it's attendants - hold the clues...

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.

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. The presumed suicide begins to look more and more like murder when several newcomers swoop down on the scene and try to find a valuable rare book.

Everyone knew her. A lot of them like her. One of them killed her. Jeanne Clinton was a pretty and well-liked woman—though in her younger days she'd been known to be a bit wild. But she married an older man and settled down to a quiet, respectable life. Now she is dead, brutally murdered in her home.

Life is never easy for Texas Sheriff Dan Rhodes. When he is called in the middle of the night to investigate gunshots at a haunted house, Rhodes finds the body of meth dealer Neil Foshee. Recently released from jail, Foshee has his fair share of potential murderers, including former girlfriend Vicki, her new boyfriend, the nephew of Clearview's mayor, and Foshee's criminal cousins Earl and Louie.Complicating matters is Seepy Benton, the community college math professor who has a new summer job. He's founded Clearview Paranormal Investigations and wants to solve the murder by communing with Foshee's ghost. But when he connects with something else instead and a second body is found, Rhodes is left with more questions than ever. Who's the dead person? How long has the body been hidden? Is Benton really able to communicate with ghosts? And most importantly: What, if anything, does the body have to do with Neil Foshee's death?Between the Living and the Dead, Bill...