Thu 9 Nov 2023
An Archived Mystery Review by BILL CRIDER – Winning Can Be Murder.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[4] Comments
BILL CRIDER – Winning Can Be Murder. Dan Rhodes #8. St. Martin’s, hardcover, 1996. Worldwide, paperback, 2000.
This is my favorite of Bill’s series, and it’s a sin and a shame that no one is doing them in paperback now. Other people try to do small town Southwestern cop novels and some do pretty good, but nobody does them as well as Bill.
Do you know what small-town Texas tragedy is? It’s having an assistant coach murdered just when the local high school football team is about to make the playoffs for the first time in ages. Do you know what pressure is? It’s what Sheriff Dan Rhodes feels from every citizen of the surrounding territory above the age of five (and a few below it) to solve this crime and get it out of the way so folks can get back to worrying about really important matters-like a football game.
I don’t have any first-hand experience with small-town high school football these days, so I can’t say whether Bill nailed it present-day or not; I can say that it it was that way when I experienced it, and I could smell the dust and hear the cheers again when I read his descriptions.
Aside from Bill’s always smooth and easy-to-read prose, that’s what l enjoy most about the books — the feeling that these are real people in real places, acting the way people in those places act. Well, up to a point, anyway.
The Rhodes books will never b5e huge sellers, because they aren’t grim and bloody enough to attract the body-count crowd, nor on the other hand a female lead who can tumble “engagingly” into peril, save the police from their incompetence, and give you a to-die-for recipe in the process.
They are nevertheless thoroughly entertaining and very readable, and it’s a damned shame more people don’t know about them.
November 9th, 2023 at 8:32 pm
Note that Barry complained about the fact that Bill’s books weren’t being reprinted in paperback. They weren’t at the time, and it took four years, but this one at least did come out in a paper edition.
Worldwide, though, was the mystery branch of Harlequin, and I wonder how much they paid for reprint rights. On the other hand, the books were also sold by them as part of a “book club” format, which was very efficient, and at least the books were in the hands of readers.
November 10th, 2023 at 10:14 am
So true. You can’t go wrong with Bill’s books, and the Sheriff Rhodes series was always fun.
And I’d say that even if he hadn’t dedicated one of them (RED, WHITE AND BLUE MURDER) to me.
November 10th, 2023 at 11:13 am
His books are always a pleasure to read, and a nice change after reading a couple of books that are a little more hardcore.
Kind of like a comfortable pair of slippers, that always feel good when you put them on, and I say that as an ultimate compliment.
November 11th, 2023 at 12:55 am
Having grown up around these small Texas towns I can assure you Bill had every detail down from the eccentricity to the threat of violence.