It's been a while since Sheriff Dan Rhodes's 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. Too many coincidences for Rhodes's comfort. Especially when another corpse makes it a second down for a killer determined to lead Sheriff Rhodes into a game of sudden death.

The versatile mystery novelist Bill Crider has created a pantheon of marvelous characters, but none is more real, warm, and thoroughly delightful than Sheriff Dan Rhodes of Blacklin County, Texas. 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. If it seems unlikely to find such an arcane entrepreneur in this extremely rural and sparsely populated part of Texas, it becomes less strange when it turns out that Graham was more con man than bibliophile. The presumed suicide begins to look more and more like murder when several newcomers swoop down on the scene and try to beat out one another to find a reputedly valuable rare book that Graham was rumored to have among his collection of hardly worthwhile items. Although Rhodes's two attenuated and eccentric jailhouse employees have gone overboard for the magic of the department's new computer, the steady, if put-upon, Rhodes and his clear-eyed observations of human nature have invariably been more useful to the solution of a crime—and that is still true in the case of the hanged book dealer.

Small-town Texas sheriff Dan Rhodes is in for another puzzling mystery in this next in the entertaining, award-winning series 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 and arrests Ike Terrell, a student who was fleeing the campus. Ike's father is Able Terrell, a survivalist who has withdrawn from society and lives in a gated compound. He's not happy that his son has chosen to attend the college, and he's even less happy with the arrest. Rhodes discovers that Wellington and Ike had had a confrontation over a paper that Wellington insisted Ike plagiarized. Wellington also had had a confrontation with the dean and was generally disliked by the students. As the number of suspects increases, it's up to Rhodes to solve the murder while also dealing with an amusing but frustrating staff, a professor who wants to be a cop, and all the other normal occurrences that can wreak havoc in a small town. Bill Crider's Compound Murder is an enjoyable police procedural filled with surprises, chuckles, and a quirky cast that will captivate mystery readers.

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 enforcement agency, not the county sheriff. That all changes, however, when Hamilton is found dead, floating in an old rock pit not far from the town of Clearview. Hamilton had probably been engaged in the act of noodling for catfish, which is not only highly dangerous but illegal in Texas. Rhodes suspects that Hamilton didn't die by accident, though. There are plenty of suspects, including an eccentric community college professor and one of his colleagues, who lives near the chicken farm and has to wear a respirator mask to ward off the smell. Also, someone known in the county as Robin Hood is going around shooting arrows into utility poles as a protest. When semi-nude protestors arrive at the chicken farm, things really begin to get out of hand. Filled with fun, mayhem, and memorable characters, Murder in the Air is a wonderful addition to this very excellent series. Award-winning author Bill Crider shows again that he is one of the most talented and entertaining mystery writers around.

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 Berry, the director of the chorus, is murdered. Berry is suspected of embezzling money, and he's leaked the information that a member of the chorus ordered a singing valentine for a woman who isn't his wife. Later, Rhodes discovers that Berry has been gambling on eight-liners at Rollin' Sevens, a barely legal operation in a strip center on the outskirts of town. Rhodes also must deal with the usual assortment of small-town crimes: a man dressed in his underpants and cowboy boots picketing a law office, dogfood theft, and attempts on the life of a man who likes to root through garbage. Rhodes sorts through clues that involve geocaching and barbershop singing with the help of a few oddball local characters before he solves the crime.

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. There was a lot of gossip going on about Lynn before her death, but no one seems to really know much about her, or they're not telling Rhodes. Lynn was known to flirt, and it's possible an angry wife or jilted lover had something to do with her death. The salon owner suspects two outsiders who have been staying in an abandoned building across the street. While he investigates the murder, Rhodes must also deal with the theft of copper and car batteries, not to mention a pregnant nanny goat that is terrorizing the town. Murder of a Beauty Shop Queen is a wonderful entry in this always delightful series by award-winning author Bill Crider.

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 animal shelter in the county and they welcome even feral hogs. Someone's threatened them by slaughtering one of their animals and leaving it on their doorstep. Then Sheriff Dan Rhodes and Deputy Ruth Grady stumble across a dead man while searching the woods for a convenience store robber. The investigation into the man's death is complicated by angry hog hunters, a crusading talk-show host, a bounty hunter named Hoss, conflicts with the county commissioners, and the reappearance of Rapper and Nellie, the inept two-man motorcycle gang that's caused Rhodes considerable trouble in the past. By the time he's sorted through all the clues, Rhodes discovers that quite a few people aren't who they seemed to be, including those he's known for a long time. And some of them are killers. Award-winning author Bill Crider has written an endearing and consistently entertaining series, and The Wild Hog Murders offers a fresh new chance to get in on the fun.