From Publishers Weekly
In Crider's deadpan 14th Dan Rhodes mystery (after 2006's
A Mammoth Murder), the appearance of a black cat at the sheriff's backdoor is a harbinger of bad news about its owner, Helen Harris, a community fixture and Old Women's Literary Society (OWLS) member. When Rhodes goes looking for Helen, he finds her dead on her kitchen floor, apparently from a tumble while changing a lightbulb. But the escaped housecat, which Helen never let outside, leads him to believe that her death was no accident but a cold-blooded murder. Helen's death sends shock waves rippling through the tight-knit community of Clearview, Tex., and Rhodes's investigation reveals how love among the Geritol set can be just as fraught as it is for the young. His shrewd handling of entertaining suspects—including a trailer park Don Juan Leo Thorpe and Helen's grieving lover—crackles with wickedly wry wit. Rhodes's laconic, laid-back detecting style—a cross between Tom Selleck and Willie Nelson—makes for top-notch down-home crime solving.
(Jan.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Black cats may foreshadow a streak of bad luck, or they can simply be furry companions for sweet old ladies like Helen Harris. When Sam, Helen's black cat, shows up on Sheriff Dan Rhodes' back porch, Rhodes goes to Helen's home to let her know Sam is loose but finds Helen dead in her kitchen. Did she really take a tumble off a ladder or is something amiss? Rhodes' instincts tell him the latter, so he begins to poke into Helen's seemingly sedate life in Blacklin County, Texas. Could a murderer lurk within the Older Women's Literary Society? Or perhaps someone covets the lucrative mineral rights Helen owns to property that will soon house natural gas wells? Rhodes carefully picks his way through the case and the suspects in his inimitable aw-shucks, slightly befuddled style. The fourteenth Rhodes mystery by Anthony Award-winning Crider is a typically rewarding read marked with dry humor, meticulous plotting, and insights into the mysterious rites of small-town life.
Wes LukowskyCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
