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 Ike's father is Able Terrell, a survivalist who has withdrawn from society and lives in a ...
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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 Ike's father is Able Terrell, a survivalist who has withdrawn from society and lives in a gated compound.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.
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Add this copy of Compound Murder: a Dan Rhodes Mystery (Sheriff Dan to cart. $82.14, new condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2013 by Minotaur Books.
Add this copy of Compound Murder: a Dan Rhodes Mystery (Sheriff Dan to cart. $101.14, new condition, Sold by GridFreed rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from North Las Vegas, NV, UNITED STATES, published 2013 by Minotaur Books.
The wonderful thing about these Dan Rhodes stories is that they are throw-backs to the mystery novels before Miami Vice and NCIS. Solutions are found because of hard work, not snappy forensics or DNA. Fun and humor are woven between the threads of the plot. Dr. C. P. Benton; "Seepy" is a case in point. If there's ever been a wannabe police officer, it is Seepy.
The story starts with hair extensions -- they have been stolen from the Beauty Shack in town. While the sheriff is sorting through the clues another call comes -- there's a dead body at the community college campus. The dead man is an English professor who is very unpopular with the students and faculty. While Rhodes is trying to tie down the crime scene, a car speeds away and Rhodes has to go in hot pursuit. When Rhodes finally catches his man, the case of the hair extensions returns. But this student has had hard words with the dead professor; is he the killer?
There's a lot of humor, odd-ball characters and a dying small town wrapped into the lot. Because the place remains and quirky characters return (like bad pennies), the reader has a sense that this place and situation could really exist.
XXXXXX SPOILER ALERT XXXXXXXX (DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU WANT A CLUE THAT WILL GIVE AWAY THE PLOT). My beef with this novel is the title. As soon as the first word of the title came up in the story, it gave away the killer. Bummer.
