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Bill Crider
Full Series List in Order
A Carl Burns Mystery
1 - One Dead Dean (Aug-1988)2 - Dying Voices (Nov-1989)
3 - A Dangerous Thing (Jul-1994)
A Humphrey Bogart Mystery
1 - We'll Always Have Murder (Oct-2003)Mike Gonzo
Mike Gonzo and the Almost Invisible Man (Jul-2012)Mike Gonzo and the Sewer Monster (Jul-2012)
Mike Gonzo and the UFO Terror (Jul-2012)
A Professor Sally Good Mystery
1 - Murder Is an Art (Apr-1999)2 - A Knife in the Back (Sep-2002)
3 - A Bond With Death (Nov-2004)
A Sheriff Dan Rhodes Mystery
1 - Too Late to Die (Jul-1986)2 - Shotgun Saturday Night (Sep-1987)
3 - Cursed to Death (Feb-1988)
4 - Death on the Move (Apr-1989)
5 - Evil at the Root (May-1990)
6 - Booked for a Hanging (Oct-1992)
7 - Murder Most Fowl (Sep-1994)
8 - Winning Can Be Murder (Apr-1996)
9 - Death by Accident (1997)
10 - A Ghost of a Chance (Jul-2000)
11 - A Romantic Way to Die (Nov-2001)
12 - Murder, Mayhem and Mistletoe: The Empty Manger (Nov-2001)
13 - Red, White, and Blue Murder (Oct-2003)
14 - A Mammoth Murder (Apr-2006)
15 - Murder Among the O.W.L.S. (Jan-2007)
16 - Of All Sad Words (Feb-2008)
17 - Murder in Four Parts (Feb-2009)
18 - Murder in the Air (Aug-2010)
19 - The Wild Hog Murders (Jul-2011)
20 - Murder of a Beauty Shop Queen (Aug-2012)
21 - Compound Murder (Aug-2013)
22 - Half in Love with Artful Death (Aug-2014)
23 - Between the Living and the Dead (Aug-2015)
24 - Survivors Will Be Shot Again (Aug-2016)
25 - Dead, to Begin with (Aug-2017)
26 - That Old Scoundrel Death (Feb-2019)
A Truman Smith Mystery
1 - Dead on the Island (May-1991)2 - Gator Kill (May-1992)
3 - When Old Men Die (Nov-1994)
4 - The Prairie Chicken Kill (Jul-1996)
5 - Murder Takes a Break (Oct-1997)
Multi-Author Series List
Adventures of Wishbone
8 - Muttketeer! (Dec-1997)Wishbone
Muttketeer! (Dec-1997)Book List in Order: 66 titles
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Too Late to Die
- Jul-1986
- / Police Procedural
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Peaceful rural life is shattered in Blacklin County, Texas, when Jeanne Clinton is found murdered in her home. Turns out the talkative woman was the late-night confidant of several men in the community, who happened by the house while her husband wor...
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Shotgun Saturday Night
- Sep-1987
- / Police Procedural
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Sheriff Dan Rhodes knows it's going to be a bad day when Bert Ramsey arrives at the jail with a neatly wrapped arm and lays it on Dan's desk. He has another out in the truck, he tells the sheriff, and a couple of legs, too, but they don't match up.T...
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Cursed to Death
- Feb-1988
- / Police Procedural
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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. Samu...
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One Dead Dean
- Aug-1988
- / Amateur Sleuth
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I can just imagine the questions in history, Fox said. Who was our first of it, maybe the second one's too hard. But you get the idea!Yeah, Burns said. I get the idea.Hartley Gorman College, in Pecan City, Texas, is hardly a bastion of serious schol...
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Death on the Move
- Apr-1989
- / Police Procedural
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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 ...
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Dying Voices
- Nov-1989
- / Amateur Sleuth
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Pecan City, Texas, is a quiet, uneventful town. Hartley Gorman is a sedate, fundamentalist college (although a dean was murdered there once—in Bill Crider's One Dead Dean). English professor Carl Burns is about to begin yet another year in su...
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Galveston Gunman
- Feb-1990
- / Historical
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Bushwacking loner Lee Strate and lifting his hard-earned stake of $5000. Wounded and left for dead on a trail somewhere near Houston, Lee is saved by Jack Farmer, a free black man, who tends Lee's wounds and agrees to help recover the money. In Houst...
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Evil at the Root
- May-1990
- / Police Procedural
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When a nursing home resident in sheriff Dan Rhodes's small Texas town is found suffocated, a plastic bag tied over his head, the prime suspect, a fellow resident with whom the victim had quarreled, disappears. The victim's daughter, heir to his consi...
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Blood Marks
- May-1991
- / Suspense
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He's smart, he's attractive, and he has a special vision: whenever he sees the blood marks on a Goman--marks only he can see--he knows what he must do. Kill her. Brutally. And not leave a trace of himself behind. Nine women have died so far. An...
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Dead on the Island
- May-1991
- / Private Investigator
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Ex-P.I. Truman Smith of Galveston, Texas, is painting houses, trying to forget the disappearance of his sister Jan a year ago and his all-out, failed efforts to find her. Tru's high-school football teammates Dino and Ray live in Galveston too. Dino i...
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The New Black Cat
in Cat Crimes 2- 1992
- / General Fiction
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From the pens of today's most prolific, popular, and feline-fancying mystery writers comes CAT CRIMES 2, a chilling collection of original stories that will leave cat- and mystery-lovers purring for more. Inside you'll encounter the Bogart drawl of P...
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The Texas Capitol Murders
- Feb-1992
- / Suspense
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When a young cleaning woman is murdered in the Texas capitol building in Austin, Ranger Rayn Harnett must question the building's entire staff, legislators, anti-choice demonstrators, and the governor himself to get at the truth....
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Gator Kill
- May-1992
- / Private Investigator
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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. But when an alligator is killed and its carcass left on display on...
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Ryan Rides Back
- Sep-1992
- / Suspense
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When Ryan came riding back into Tularosa people gawped in disbelief. The power-players in town wanted him out of town-whether by horse or by casket. His old friends welcomed him, but their faces were shadowed with doubt and hard questions. Why could ...
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Booked for a Hanging
- Oct-1992
- / Police Procedural
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Sheriff Dan Rhodes of Blacklin County, Texas, finds the body of book dealer Simon Graham hanging from the rafters of an old college building he had planned to restore. Graham's business partner, his erstwhile girlfriend and a rival book dealer all la...
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Death's Brother
- Oct-1992
- / Mystery
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Women become the protagonists in an anthology of fourteen mystery stories by Sara Paretsky, Barbara Michaels, Nancy Pickard, Loren D. Estleman, John D. MacDonald, and Bill Pronzini, among others. Reprint....
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A Dangerous Thing
- Jul-1994
- / Amateur Sleuth
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PAINFUL CORRECTNESS The new dean of Hartley Gorman College arrives with an agenda of political correctness that hits Professor Carl Burns where it hurts: Shakespeare, Milton, Homer, Wordsworth -- all of his DWEMs (Dead White European Males) must g...
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Murder Most Fowl
- Sep-1994
- / Police Procedural
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Blacklin County, Texas, Sheriff Dan Rhodes investigates a crime wave of emu-rustling and a murder that may be related to the theft of the valuable birds. By the author of
Booked for a Hanging. ... -
When Old Men Die
- Nov-1994
- / Private Investigator
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Truman Smith is happily fishing off a Galveston pier when his friend Dino seeks him out and asks for some help: Outside Harry, an old-timer with connections to Dino's family, is missing.Smith doesn't want to have anything to do with it; the last time...
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The Easter Cat
- Jan-1995
- / General Fiction
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CELEBRATE THE HOLIDAYS WITH FAMILY AND FELINES
In these nineteen original tail-twitching tales of mystery, cats from Maine coon to Scottish fold, tabby to Siamese, white Persian to calico crack all manner of holiday capers. Arbor Day reminds a... -
Winning Can Be Murder
- Apr-1996
- / Police Procedural
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FIRST DOWN FORA KILLER It's been a while since Sheriff Dan Rhodes's football days, but things haven't really changed, at least not with state play-offs coming up and excitement for the local high school team heating to a fever pitch. But coach ...
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The Prairie Chicken Kill
- Jul-1996
- / Private Investigator
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The fourth mystery in the series featuring Truman Smith finds the half-hearted investigator away from his customary soda pop and Faulkner novel, skulking through Galveston's back alleys on the trail of a cold-blooded killer....
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Death by Accident
- 1997
- / Police Procedural
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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...
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Murder Takes a Break
- Oct-1997
- / General Fiction
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When Galveston private detective Truman Smith takes up the search for a missing college student, a boy who vanished during spring break, he uncovers mysterious links to another case, the death of a female fellow student....
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Muttketeer!
- Dec-1997
- / Suspense
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It's one for all, and all for fun! Wishbone is locked out of the school, while Joe Talbot, Samantha Kepler, and David Barnes are inside checking out a new CD-ROM. This reminds Wishbone of The Three Musketeers and the story of a young Frenchman nam...
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Outrage at Blanco
- Dec-1998
- / Historical
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On the day the bloodthirsty gang rode into Blanco, Texas, the bank was robbed, Ellie Taine was brutally assaulted, and her husband and another man were shot dead. Something within Ellie also died that day, and she would never be the same. Shotgun at ...
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Murder Is an Art
- Apr-1999
- / Amateur Sleuth
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Dr. Sally Good, head of the English and Fine Arts Division of the Hughes Community College in Texas, has her hands full. On top of dealing with the numerous complaints from testy faculty members concerning the allocation of the department's budget, ...
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Texas Vigilante
- Sep-1999
- / Historical
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The powerful sequel to Outrage at Blanco, Edgar & Shamus Award nominee Bill Crider’s startlingly original western crime novelSix months ago, Ellie was a newlywed, working the dry land in 1880s Texas. Then the desperados came. They raped her...
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A Ghost of a Chance
- Jul-2000
- / Police Procedural
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THE MORE THINGS CHANGE... Though nostalgic for the good old days. Sheriff Dan Rhodes of Blacklin County, Texas, knows that times may change, but people are still people, some good, some bad, and most things can be explained with a little common se...
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Chocolate Moose
- 2001
- / Mystery
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CLAUDIA BISHOP AND NICK DICHARIO request the honor of your presence at a different kind of dinner party ... Festivities begin promptly at 8:3o. Sixteen short stories -- accompanied by dangerously delicious recipes -- will be served. Be the...
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Murder, Mayhem and Mistletoe: The Empty Manger
- Nov-2001
- / Police Procedural
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Bill Crider's Texas sheriff, Dan Rhodes, has his hands full with a "living" manger scene downtown when the body of the local councilwoman is found nearby. Rhodes has a suspect list as long as a string of Christmas lights -- but it's old-fashioned hor...
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A Romantic Way to Die
- Nov-2001
- / Police Procedural
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"Dan Rhodes, the sheriff of Blacklin County, Texas, has seen more than his share of strange events during his time in office - most recently he exorcised a ghost from the county jail - but nothing could have prepared him for the group of writers that...
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A Knife in the Back
- Sep-2002
- / Amateur Sleuth
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CRASH COURSE IN MURDER Having broken her hard-and-fast rule about dating members of her department, Hughes Community College English professor Sally Good gets some shocking news about fellow teacher and lukewarm romantic interest Jack Neville: he'...
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We'll Always Have Murder
- Oct-2003
- / Private Investigator
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Humphrey Bogart teams up with down-and-out Hollywood private detective Terry Scott to uncover a blackmailer out to frame Bogie for murder, an investigation that leads them from the glamorous haunts of the stars to L.A.'s dark underbelly and brings th...
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Red, White, and Blue Murder
- Oct-2003
- / Police Procedural
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Sheriff Dan Rhodes has half a mind to shoot the next person who asks if it's hot enough for him, what with the near hundred-degree heat and a months-old drought. He's also a bit warm under the collar over an ambitious local reporter's allegations of ...
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Mr. Pickwick vs. the Body Snatchers
- Mar-2004
- / Suspense
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The plot Dickens... In the pages of his novels, Charles Dickens railed against injustice in all its forms--the miserliness of Ebenezer Scrooge, the indifference of the aristocracy, the cruelty of Fagin. He captured the bitter unfairness of the cla...
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Dead Soldiers
- Jun-2004
- / Mystery
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Carl Burns just wants to be chair of the English Department at Hartley-Gorman College, a small liberal-arts school in Pecan City, Texas. But if you solve one crime in a small town, as Burns has done, folks think you can solve 'em all--as when some co...
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White House Horrors
- Aug-2004
- / General Fiction
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The White House has seen many extraordinary events unfold within its well-guarded walls. And now such top writers as Brian Hodge, Max Allan Collins and Barbara Collins, Graham Masterton, Bill Crider, Billie Sue Mosiman, and Edward Lee tell the tales ...
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A Bond With Death
- Nov-2004
- / Amateur Sleuth
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Sally's husband has been dead for eight years; his remote ancestor, the witch Sarah Good, died on the scaffold in Salem more than four hundred years ago. Yet the president of Sally's college is afraid the story will reflect on the institution. Sa...
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A Mammoth Murder
- Apr-2006
- / Police Procedural
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It starts when Blacklin County, Texas, oddball tough-guy Bud Turley asks Sheriff Dan Rhodes to guard an enormous tooth Bud found, which he claims belonged to Bigfoot. Shortly thereafter, the body of Bud's friend Larry is found in the vicinity of the...
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Murder Among the O.W.L.S.
- Jan-2007
- / Police Procedural
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Birds of a dangerous feather Sheriff Dan Rhodes isn't superstitious, but when his elderly neighbor's black cat walks into his kitchen, he suspects trouble, confirmed when he finds Helen Harris dead on her kitchen floor. It appears to be accidental...
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I Was a Teenage Vampire
- Sep-2007
- / Urban Fantasy
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Includes an original Sookie Stackhouse story
"Clever...entertaining... excellent"(Library Journal) original vampire stories by Charlaine Harris, Jim Butcher, Kelley Armstrong, and more.
From cakes to stakes, a celebration of everyone's ... -
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Of All Sad Words
- Feb-2008
- / Police Procedural
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DOWN-HOME DEAD What are the Crawford brothers cooking up in their trailer in the middle of Blacklin County? Sheriff Dan Rhodes receives a complaint that it's meth, a growing menace in the East Texas woods, and a likely culprit when the trailer explo...
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Murder in Four Parts
- Feb-2009
- / Police Procedural
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When Sheriff Dan Rhodes is asked to join the Clearview Barbershop Chorus, he suspects that there's an ulterior motive, mainly because he can't sing a note. He's momentarily distracted by a rogue alligator on the loose, but shortly afterward, Lloyd Be...
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Murder in the Air
- Aug-2010
- / Police Procedural
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There's a big stink in Blacklin County, and everyone seems to think Sheriff Dan Rhodes should do something about it. The smell is coming from the giant chicken farm owned by Lester Hamilton. Rhodes sees this as a matter for the state's air-quality en...
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Live Noir or Die Trying
- Dec-2010
- / General Fiction
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Praise for the first Damn Near Dead anthology:
"Some [of the stories] are hilarious; many are sad; all are the kind of stuff that makes Miss Marple look like a Girl Scout." -- Dick Adler, Chicago Tribune
"The best anthology I've read t...
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A Werewolf Named Wayne
- May-2011
- / General Fiction
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Al's new next-door neighbors have just arrived in a smoke-belching DeSoto convertible. They may travel in style, but there's more to them than meets their strangely eerie eyes. Things are going to get hairy as Al gets to know these new additions t...
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A Vampire Named Fred
- Jun-2011
- / General Fiction
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When someone finally moves into the old, dark, musty house next door, two boys make an unusual friend. "I always thought that vampires had to have names like Dracula or Vlad or Lestat, but that was before Fred moved into the house next door. In...
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The Wild Hog Murders
- Jul-2011
- / Police Procedural
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Like most of the rest of Texas, Blacklin County is being overrun with feral hogs that destroy farmland and crops. There's hardly any defense against these pests, but they haven't been the cause of murder. Until now. A mother and son have opened an a...
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Mike Gonzo and the Sewer Monster
- Jul-2012
- / Action Adventure
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When a pair of sewer monsters is discovered in the storm drains, a young boy and his friends blame the subsequent chaos on Mike "Gonzo" Chilton and must save the town of Midgeville from certain disaster. ...
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Mike Gonzo and the UFO Terror
- Jul-2012
- / Action Adventure
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Laughing at local reports of UFO sightings and the kid who claims he was abducted, Bob and Big T reluctantly follow the troublesome Mike Gonzo onto the UFO he discovers and are amazed when the ship takes off with them inside. ...
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Murder of a Beauty Shop Queen
- Aug-2012
- / Police Procedural
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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....
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Compound Murder
- Aug-2013
- / Police Procedural
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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 a...
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Half in Love with Artful Death
- Aug-2014
- / Police Procedural
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The local community college and an antique dealer team up to have a workshop for artists. One local man, Burt Collins, isn't fond of the art, and he isn't fond of having the artists in town. Sheriff Dan Rhodes is called to the antique store because C...
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Don't Be Cruel
- Nov-2014
- / Fantasy
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There’s more to Sookie Stackhouse than you ever knew…
The #1 New York Times bestselling Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris spawned a hit TV show and captivated fans around the world -- including other authors. Now this group of w... -
Between the Living and the Dead
- Aug-2015
- / Police Procedural
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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 pote...
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Survivors Will Be Shot Again
- Aug-2016
- / Police Procedural
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There's no such thing as a day off for a sheriff. Even in a small Texas town like Clearview, there's always something going on for law enforcement. Still, most days don't involve a run-in with an alligator. And that's not the worst of Sheriff Dan ...
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Eight Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
- Jun-2017
- / Mystery
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Available for the first time in a single collection, eight stories featuring the World's Greatest Detective, Sherlock Holmes, written by award-winning author Bill Crider. Return to 221B Baker Street as Holmes and his trusty sidekick, Dr. Watson, inv...
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Dead, to Begin with
- Aug-2017
- / Police Procedural
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In Clearview, Texas, a wealthy recluse has joined the community and is leading the restoration of an old opera house. When he falls to his death, Sheriff Dan Rhodes suspects that he’s been murdered, but there doesn’t seem to be a motive. Who woul...
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That Old Scoundrel Death
- Feb-2019
- / Police Procedural
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Beloved Texas Sheriff Dan Rhodes is back with his final murder case in That Old Scoundrel Death. When a man is run off the road by a thug with a snake tattooed around his neck, Sheriff Dan Rhodes knows it's his duty to stop and help out. The grat...
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Medicine Show
Ray Storey left Kansas for one reason: revenge. Assuming the role of Kit Carson in a Medicine Show that travels to small towns around East Texas, he hunts down Sam Hawkins, the brutal murderer of Storey''s innocent younger brother. As Ray finally arr...
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A Time for Hanging
Lizzie Randall, the preacher''s pretty daughter, has been discovered brutally murdered. The young Mexican boy Paco Morales is found close to the scene making him a convenient scapegoat to hang for the heinous crime. When the town drunkard Willie Turn...
Award-Winning Books by Bill Crider
1987 Anthony Award -- First Novel