A Ghost of a Chance

I really had no idea who committed the murders, but it all made sense and there was no trickery in the solution. This is a favorite series for me, but the reader must remember that it's just for fun -- and suspend some disbelief (like there only seem to be 5 employees in the sheriff's department, including the sheriff, although they have a jail and patrol the entire county). It's a cozy police procedural set in rural Texas. One of the central attractions of the series is the main character, Sheriff Rhodes, who is good-natured, has a good sense of humor, and dislikes carrying a gun or shooting anyone. Nonetheless, he is repeatedly shot at, attacked, injured, etc. -- to a ridiculous degree, but you just have to go with the flow and enjoy the story. The many "characters" in the book are lively and interesting -- such as a very ordinary woman who writes romance novels, two sheriff's office employees who drive the sheriff crazy with their unwillingness to get to the point (and if he looks exasperated, they announce he must be having trouble with his marriage...) The story begins with the discovery of a body in a grave in a cemetery -- not in a coffin, but a recent murder victim, apparently. There are multiple things going on in the county, including a problem with cemeteries being robbed of gravestones and statuary, the return of two motorcycle-riding troublemakers, a possible meth lab, etc. These books are easy reading -- I read this one in a few hours and thoroughly enjoyed it.

This tenth in the series opens with concerns by some that the Blacklin County Jail is haunted. Sheriff Rhodes doesn't believe it but, as the Dispatcher Hank Jensen points out, the guys back in the cells believe "and that's all that matters." (Page 1) Rhodes doesn't believe much in computers either though he does admit that occasionally they do help a little bit. It's only fitting on a dark and stormy day and with talk of ghosts that Sheriff Rhodes gets called out to the cemetery. Clyde Ballinger has called in to report a dead man in one of the graves at the cemetery. The grave had been opened for Travis McCoy and the burial is planned for later in the day. But, the man in the open grave is Ty Berry who had been the President of the Clearview Sons and Daughters of Texas. The group was devoted to the preservation of the history of the city of Clearview and Blacklin County and frequently found itself at odds with the local citizenry on one issue or another. Preserving the past costs money and a lot of folks simply don't care about history or the past. Recently somebody has been looting the twelve cemeteries in the county and Ty Berry was organizing volunteer patrols, pushing commissioners for security for the cemeteries, and lots of other things that annoyed some folks. Shot dead and dumped in the open grave, his murder is going to cause political repercussions for Rhodes. He is going to have to talk to people who aren't going to want to deal with the messy issue of murder because it is so beneath their station in life while others either hated the man or just didn't care and don't have the time or patience to be bothered. Then there is the pesky problem that the motorcycles are back. People are reporting the rumbling of tail pipes which in all likelihood means one thing - Rapper is back. Weaving these threads and others author Bill Crider creates another solid entry in the Sheriff Rhodes series. No character development or evolution of the main or secondary characters happens in this cozy style novel. And no forensics of the style they do on television in a splashy forty-five minutes. No, this book and the series as a whole is old fashioned police work where the guilty are usually caught by way of a web of lies. Progress may have come to the East Texas County in the form of Wal-Mart and downtown Clearview might be dying because of it, but the police work is old school investigation led by Sheriff Rhodes. Rhodes digs into the case by frequently asking questions of characters we have seen many times before in other books in the series, poking around crime scenes and elsewhere, and knowing folks. Some live, some die, and progress continues to whittle away at the Clearview of Rhodes youth and yet he continues on dealing with just the things he can control and trying not to worry about the things he can't. There is a lesson in all that along with another good story in a series that is steadily good book after book. Kevin R. Tipple (copyrigh

Our favorite Texas sheriff gets disturbing news at the beginning of this installment: a dead body has been found in a freshly-dug grave at one of the county cemeteries. Unfortunately, it's not in a coffin and it's in the way of the plot's scheduled inhabitant, due for burial later that day. The body turns out to be that of the president of the local chapter of the Sons and Daughters of Texas, a group that avid readers will be familiar with from the previous Dan Rhodes book, DEATH BY ACCIDENT. Ty Berry had been in the midst of two preservation missions: thwarting thieves that had been destroying and carrying away cemetery markers, and making a futile attempt at saving Clearview's vacant downtown buildings. Dan Rhodes begins an investigation and has as a strong suspect Faye Knape, president of the Clearview Historical Society -- until she ends up permanently silenced as well. In the meantime, ghostly visions have been sighted in the main cemetery. Local gal Vernell Lindsey has made good by getting her first romance novel published (complete with a photo of model Terry Don Coslin on the cover), but she can't seem to keep her three goats (Shirley, Goodness and Mercy) fenced in her backyard. And what are Rapper and Nellie doing back in town? Those two and their motorcycles caused problems for Rhodes back in WINNING CAN BE MURDER and SHOTGUN SATURDAY NIGHT. Whatever they're up to, it can't be good. We trust that the Blacklin County sheriff will figure everything out without getting shot at, beaten up, or thoroughly soaked and muddy. Well, maybe the best we and his wife Ivy can hope for is that he stays generally in one piece. A GHOST OF A CHANCE is an entertaining diversion from whatever world you're currently living in. And if you're planning on reading more Dan Rhodes books, make sure you read this one after DEATH BY ACCIDENT and before A ROMANTIC WAY TO DIE; otherwise, you'll unduly eliminate some suspects for yourself by comparison.

This was my first Dan Rhoades mystery and I enjoyed it somuch that I decided to read the rest of the series. The tone of the book is quiet and funny, but the plot keeps you guessingright up to the end. Who killed Ty Berry, head of one of the local (and feuding) historical societies? Who or what is hauntingthe cemetary and the jail? Why are heavy pieces of statuary going missing from the local cemetaries and who is taking them? It's up to intrepid Sheriff Dan and his merry band of oddball deputies to ferret out the truth among the even odder inhabitants of Blacklin County. Even if you've never been to Texas, you will recognize the situations Dan gets into and the people he has to put up with. Understated and very good.

The sheriff of Blacklin County, Texas is not having an easy time of it because the five prisoners incarcerated in the jail insist the place is haunted. Sheriff Dan Rhodes and his employees, Hack Jensen and Lawton do not believe in ghosts, but wonder what is going on when the prisoners start studiously read the Bible.Dan's life becomes a bit weirder when he learns that a dead person has been found occupying a freshly dug grave in the cemetery. The grave was originally dug for Terry McCoy, but the corpse is that of Ty Berry, shot in the head with a .22. Although there are no further clues at the cemetery, Dan sees a couple of fleeting shadows out of the corners of his eyes. Soon the townsfolk begin believing that Ty haunts the cemetery. In addition to catching a mortal killer and other criminals, Dan needs to keep his fellow citizens calm and quiet while he and his staff solve the cases.Bill Crider has so fully developed the characters in the Dan Rhodes mysteries with each new novel, readers feel they are visiting dear long term friends. Of course these buddies are quite eccentric. A GHOST OF A CHANCE, the tenth tale in this down home regional series, is amusing, interesting, and filled with local color. The hero is an amiable Texan who is everyone's pal until he makes an arrest. Fans of the sub-genre will enjoy this visit to Blacklin County.Harriet Klausner