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A Mammoth Murder

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#13 in the Dan Rhodes series, but I don't really think that this is a series you have to read in order. I haven't and don't feel that I'm missing anything.

Dan is Sheriff of Blacklin County, Texas with an odd group of deputies that make Barney and Mayberry seem normal.

Bud Turley shows up one day with a very large tooth that he swears belongs to Bigfoot. Since he and his buddy Larry have been searching the woods since childhood, this discovery doesn't seem so out of place. But life isn't that simple and now Larry is dead. the Bigfoot Convention hits town and the body of a local boy missing for 10 years shows up.

Sheriff Dan already has his hands full, if it wasn't for the feral pigs and snakes, this would just be another day in the life of a small county sheriff. This is a very funny quick read book, I recommend this series.

In Blacklin County, Texas Bud Turley finds an enormous ancient looking tooth in a section of woods that only he and his friend Larry Colley frequent as both insist Bigfoot lives in the area and many residents either believe them or just fear these two crazy tough guys. Bud brings his treasure to the police station and asks Sheriff Dan Rhodes to safely hold it until a paleontologist from the nearby community college evaluates what Turley claims is a find that proves that Bigfoot lives in the woods; Rhodes assumes the object is the remains of a prehistoric animal.

The next day Bud is found dead with Colley screaming he was the victim of Bigfoot trying to silence him; Rhodes assumes a more human culprit killed Turley or perhaps it was the work of feral hogs. When an elderly woman is murdered nearby, Rhodes ties that death to that of Turley and has no doubt a human is the murderer. However, his effort to determine who is hampered as the crime scenes have been tampered with by Turley and Colley telling the world they can prove Bigfoot exists leading to Bigfoot mania from people coming to Blacklin Country from around the country and a few other spots.

Few authors if any can combine humor with a strong police investigation better than Bill Crider does. In Rhodes' thirteenth appearance, he serves as the serious element working on a murder case while a horde of eccentric outsiders are drawn to the area because of the alleged Bigfoot tooth finding and devastate the crime scene. As Rhodes ponders why him instead of the glamorous TV CSI dudes, A MAMMOTH MURDER is Mr. Crider at his best with a superb often humorous police procedural.

Harriet Klausner

I didn't buy this book on Amazon, but rather in a store.

Crider's droll tongue-in-cheek humor is at its best here, leaving one totally entertained. I bought this book in Dillon, Montana, on my way home from Montana to Utah and made the mistake of starting it in the parking lot of the store where I bought it. I ended up stopping and reading another chapter or two about every thirty miles on the way home because I couldn't stand not knowing what was going on. I finished the book before I got to the Montana-Idaho border, which isn't all that far from Dillon. And I was anxious to get home, BTW, so I wasn't really intending to read a book on the way.

I love Crider's style and his understated humor. I wish I could buy all his books, and I'm slowly working on it. A great read and recommend for anyone who likes mysteries. Heck, I didn't even READ mysteries until I discovered Crider. Thanks, Bill.

Veteran mystery author Bill Crider continues to demonstrate the old-fashioned but remarkable skills of Sheriff Dan Rhodes in this modern whodunit, a book that is replete with entertainment, intrigue, adventure, sorrow, and funny people. This is highly recommended for readers of mysteries and those who enjoy learning more about Texas culture.

Finding a body in the nearby Big Woods, a woods known for snakes and hogs, Sheriff Dan Rhodes is reminded of the disappearance of a young boy many years before. Curious if the two events are tied together, he begins an investigation that runs through Bigfoot hunters, auto mechanics, librarians, college professors, and laborers. Rhodes' intellect and relentless dedication to finding the truth places in him humorous situations as well as dangerous ones. In a kind of Mayberry approach to police work, Rhodes finds the guilty parties but not before having to break up fights, deal with a snake, get in a gun battle, and hear a myriad of opinions on Bigfoot.

Crider's prose is smooth and his story-telling ability is energetic and entertaining. The dialog is remarkably realistic with creative interjections of thought placed throughout the discussion. The hilarious exchange between Hack and Lawton about the mooning taking place in the county continues to make me smile. Yet even with the entertainment, particularly regarding the fear of hogs, there is a sense throughout the book of energy and danger. The almost colloquial presentation of the events does not detract from the seriousness of the overall plot. This makes for a fun, goal-directed story that pulses all the way to the satisfying conclusion.

Every Crider book is a gem, and A Mammoth Murder is one of my personal favorites.

"Technology, Rhodes thought. He knew there was a good reason he didn't trust it . The Internet was as bad as gossip." ( P. 224)

Sheriff Dan Rhodes of Blacklin County, Texas never has been fond of computers, forensic science, and all the rest of it. When murder happens in the county seat of Clearview or elsewhere in this East Texas County, Rhodes prefers to work the case or cases by the old fashioned way of asking questions. Sooner or later the killer lies once too many times about a point and all the jigsaw puzzle prices finally fit into place. It might not work out the way Rhodes had envisioned earlier while drinking Dr. Pepper and eating peanut butter and cheese crackers in his quiet courthouse office, but he always gets his killer.

This thirteenth novel in the series begins on what appears to be an unrelated story line. For years there have been rumors that Bigfoot roamed the woods of East Texas. An area in the southern part of the county known as the Big Woods is supposedly home to the Bigfoot though no one has ever actually seen one. The six mile area features tall trees and very thick brush and is most definitely the home of feral pigs. It isn't a favorite place of Rhodes as he chased a suspect in there a number of books ago and both he and the suspect ran into a bunch of the wild hogs. Fortunately, the suspect suffered more in that encounter.

Now it looks like he might be going back into those woods. Bud Turley has brought in what appears to be a fossilized tooth that measures seven inches or so long and about three inches wide. Friends Bud Turley and Larry Colley (whose claim to fame is that years ago a UFO abducted him) have been searching the woods for Big Foot. They never have caught it or gotten any proof and now Bud has a tooth which he is sure is proof. A tooth from something but probably not Bigfoot Rhodes believes but, he willing holds it for safe keeping in the evidence locker until Tom Vance, who teaches Biology over at the community college can come by the next day and study it. Tom Vance is also a paleontologist so he should be able to figure out if it is from Bigfoot especially since he also is interested in Bigfoot.

It does seem a little strange that Larry Colley didn't come in with Bud as they have done everything together since they were teenagers. When they weren't out looking for Bigfoot in the Big Woods, chasing aliens, or other odd things, both worked on old engines or just about anything. They also have a history of complaints from their customers about over charges and unorthodox collection methods. Then there were the bar fights over the years with witnesses often withdrawing statements resulting in charges being dropped. So, their reputation isn't very good. That also creates a huge number of suspects when Larry Colley is soon found dead in the Big Woods. It is obvious the feral hogs didn't kill him. Who, or what, did?

Featuring the same cast of recurring characters and folksy writing style that has been the signature of the series, Rhodes once again has to deal with oddball things and murder in the East Texas countryside. Much like what the late Philip R. Craig did so well with his Martha Vineyard series, Bill Crider does with the people and lifestyle of small town East Texas. With a steady way of doing business, Rhodes works the cases and the people to figure out who done the killing and why. There aren't any new character developments and at this point in the series, readers don't expect any. Instead, as expected, this book provides another glimpse in the ongoing lives of the central characters along with another twisting mystery. The result is another good novel in a quality series.


Kevin R. Tipple (copyright) 2009

Every region has a naturally scary place; and in Blacklin County, Texas, it's Big Woods. That's where the brush is thick, feral hogs run free, little Ronnie Bolton disappeared ten years ago, and -- according to local legend -- Bigfoot still makes his home. So when Sheriff Dan Rhodes gets a call about a dead body found in Big Woods, even he is more than a little apprehensive about the discovery.

The body turns out to belong to Larry Colley, a local semi-handyman who once claimed to have been beamed up by a UFO. To Rhodes' way of thinking, Larry's buddy and fellow Bigfoot-hunter Bud Turley might be to blame. Then again, there's Chester Johnson, who found Larry and was supposedly spooked by Bigfoot at the same time. How about either one of Larry's ex-wives, who don't seem all that broken up by his departure? When the elderly owner of a nearby general store is found dead as well, it's obvious that she saw something incriminating regarding Larry's murder. Are any of these events related to Ronnie Bolton's disappearance, so long ago?

While the good high sheriff is figuring everything out, some local college and high school students are busy with an archaeological dig around some mammoth bones. But another, smaller set of bones surfaces along the adjacent creek bed, and it's a sure bet that Ronnie Bolton has finally been found. What's the truth behind it all, past and present?

This 13th installment of the Sheriff Dan Rhodes series takes place, as usual, in a purely rural countryside with an array of quirky individuals who don't even take their caps off in restaurants anymore. Visiting Blackin County is always a treat, even though we always encounter it under less than favorable circumstances. Rhodes' methodical investigations never get tiresome.

When local troublemaker Bud Turley shows up at the sheriff's office with a huge tooth, about the only thing Sheriff Dan Rhodes is sure of is that it doesn't belong to Bigfoot like Bud thinks it does. Sure enough, the a teacher from the local community college identifies it as belonging to a mammoth--not especially rare in Texas. But before the scientists can organize a dig, a body--this one fully human--shows up not far from the mammoth. The boddy belongs to Bud's best friend and is only the first of two sudden deaths.

Sheriff Rhodes isn't sure what's going on, but he's pretty convinced that the two murders have something to do with each other, and he has a hunch that there's a connection to the long-ago disappearance of a young boy from the same area. He's also pretty sure that bigfoot isn't responsible, even if the man who discovered the body claims he saw a huge shadow that could only belong to bigfoot and even though the Texas bigfoot hunting association is all over the place. Also all over the place are a pair of authors from Dallas who've given up on writing romance and have now decided that they need to write mystery, featuring a handsome Texas Sheriff.

Author Bill Crider spins a wonderful tale with a strong Texas twang. Sheriff Dan Rhodes laconically investigates, struggles with his deputies who can be counted on to deliver as little news as slowly as possible, with his diet--which consists of too many Dairy Queen Blizzards, and with both local troublemakers and those brought in from out of town by the possibility of a bigfoot run amuck. Rhodes isn't the most physical of sheriffs, and he may not even be the smartest, but he's got plenty of small-town common sense, an understanding of the way people work, and the patience to work through the toughest mystery.

A MAMMOTH MURDER is a charming story--one that grows on you as you read, and that keeps up reader interest from start to finish.