After reading Nelson DeMille’s disappointing novel, Plum Island, I picked up a story I knew I would enjoy. I’m reading my way through Bill Crider’s Sheriff Dan Rhodes mysteries. The fifth in the series, Evil at the Root, finds the sheriff so involved in murder investigations that he lets a few things slide, such as preparations for his upcoming wedding to Ivy Daniel.
It all started with missing dentures at Sunny Dale Nursing Home. Or maybe it started fifty years earlier when a young man went missing after a fight at a dance. When Sheriff Rhodes went to the nursing home, he found Lloyd Bobbit hopping mad after the theft of his dentures. “Ah ain’t got no TEEF!” Rhodes puts a couple of his nursing home spies on the case, but he’s called back soon after when Bobbit is found dead, tied to his bed with a plastic bag over his head. And, another resident, Maurice Kennedy, is missing.
Kennedy was the primary suspect in the theft of the dentures, but he was also a nasty young man, a suspect when Louis Horn disappeared after a fight over fifty years earlier. Rhodes’ run-in with the escapee from the nursing home shows that Kennedy is still a nasty man, capable of attacking in anger. But, when Kennedy’s body turns up in the city dump, it’s a turning point for the sheriff’s investigation.
Of course, this is Sheriff Dan Rhodes. He’s attacked and beat up a couple times, even on the eve of his wedding to Ivy. He certainly isn’t going to make a good impression as a groom.
I return again and again to Bill Crider’s Sheriff Dan Rhodes books. I love the characters, Rhodes and his quirky staff at the jail. This time, they’re all faced by a lawsuit over neglect and the state of the jail. They worry the idea to death, as only they can, making it funny. Ivy Daniel has the patience of Job in dealing with the sheriff. She’ll have her hands full in this marriage.
I also appreciate the sheriff’s methods of investigation. “He talked to people, formed opinions, trusted his judgments, and tried to figure out who was lying to him.” Someone is usually lying to him before they attack and beat him up. I’m surprised he’s survived through five books with more to go.
I’m always grateful for the chance to escape into Sheriff Dan Rhodes’ world for a couple hours.
Evil at the Root by Bill Crider. Crossroad Press, 2013. 214 pages in the digital edition.
FTC Full Disclosure – I bought a Kindle edition of the book.
A good one. Shows how what seems like a very long time ago, sometimes isn’t.
It was a good one, Glen. And, you’re right. Still consequences after 50 years.
Isn’t nice to have a book from a favorite series already published and waiting for you? That’s how I feel about these Karen Pirie books by Val McDermid that I “discovered.”
It is nice, Kim. Especially after reading something that just didn’t work.
“Ah ain’t got no TEEF!”
Classic. Bill’s books always made me smile, like him naming the Sheriff’s dog Speedo after a favorite doo wop performer, Earl “Speedo” Carroll.
My question is, whatever happened to the Sheriff’s daughter? She appeared early in the series, but was dropped and never mentioned again.
She was in this one, Jeff, because she came to the wedding. But, I know you know the books, so that was probably one of the last she was in.
Jeff,
She’s still around every now and again. She attends the wedding and shows up a few more times, but she’s busy with her own family, even though Rhodes never became a grandfather, to my surprise.
You will soon move past me in the Dan Rhodes series. I have read the first eight. I enjoy them too but he needs to take better care of himself. I also love the food and the drink (Dr. Pepper) in the series.
I agree, Tracy. He does need to take better care of himself. He’s always getting in trouble or getting beat up. It seems to be Ivy or Ruth that end up saving or finding him.