Compound
Murder is the twentieth novel featuring Blacklin County,
Texas Sheriff Dan Rhodes. The series started in 1986 with Too Late to Die, and the latest title (number 22 in the series), Between the Living and Dead, is
scheduled for release in August. Blacklin County’s population is small, but the
characters and crimes are anything but.
It opens with a burglary at the Beauty Shack. The
thief broke the restroom window, and stole the Shack’s latest inventory
items—“…hair extensions and wigs. Made from real human hair,” which have an
impressive street value. Sheriff Rhodes’ report and scene investigation are
interrupted by another call. A corpse is in the parking lot of the community
college. When Rhodes arrives the scene is being handled by Dr. C. P. Benton;
“Seepy” to everyone who knows him. Dr. Benton isn’t a deputy, but he thinks he
is, and he is pretty sure the dead man was murdered—
‘You’re
sure it’s a crime scene?’
‘That
would be my professional judgment as a graduate of the Citizens’ Sheriff’s
Academy.’
As it turns out Seepy is right, and Rhodes quickly
identifies a handful of suspects. The victim was an English professor, and not
well liked. The primary suspect is a student named Ike Terrell. Ike is a
suspicious character simply by relation. His father is Able Terrell who is the
leader of the county’s local survivalist group. He has a compound, guns, and
rumors of more guns. The investigation is far from clear, and the plot is
littered with twists.
Compound
Murder is smooth, humorous, and criminal. It is a rural
police procedural; mostly whodunit with a shimmer of hardboiled. The humor is
secondary to the well-crafted mystery, and acts as a foil to the seriousness of
the crime. It is developed in the eclectic oddball characters—the Abbot and
Costello act of the police dispatcher and jailer, and Rhodes’ straight man-like
reaction to it—and the dialogue, which hums with misunderstanding. The stolen
hair is a hot topic, and provides a few well-placed laughs—
‘That’s
not a head,’ Rhodes said. ‘It’s a wig stand. With hair on it. Real human hair,
too, I’ll bet.’
‘He
scalped his victim?’
Buddy’s
voice trembled. Rhodes didn’t know if the cause was excitement or disgust.
‘No,’
Rhodes said. ‘His victim was Lonnie Wallace.’
‘It
was Lonnie Wallace’s body at the college?’
Rhodes
wondered why all his conversations seemed to go this way. Maybe it was somehow
his own fault.
Mr. Crider nicely
develops the setting—the decaying main streets of Blacklin County’s small
towns; the heat; the country’s expanse. The places, and many of the characters,
flow from novel to novel developing a strong sense of place in each, and the
series a whole. There are also a few insider jokes: Joe Lansdale’s name shows
up twice. Once as a karate instructor, and again as a novelist.
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