That Old Scoundrel Death
A Dan Rhodes Mystery
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Beloved Texas Sheriff Dan Rhodes is back with his final murder case in That Old Scoundrel Death.
When a man is run off the road by a thug with a snake tattooed around his neck, Sheriff Dan Rhodes knows it's his duty to stop and help out. The grateful victim gives his name as Cal Stinson, on his way to the nearby town of Thurston to take a look at the old school building before the city tears it down.
The next day, Cal Stinson turns up again. Only this time, he's dead.
His body is found in the dilapidated school that's about to be razed, and the woman who let Cal onto the premises claims he gave his name as Bruce Wayne. Whoever is he is, he was shot in the back of the head, and a piece of chalk lies inches away from his hand, under a lone line on the chalkboard, his last words unfinished.
Between not-so-bright hoodlums who can't seem to stay on the right side of the law, powerful families in town who are ready to go to battle over whether the old school should come down, and trying futilely to get private detective Seepy Benton to stop making mountains of mole hills, Sheriff Rhodes is beginning to wonder if retirement might be as good as it sounds.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The murder of a man with a penchant for using fake names, who was found shot to death in an abandoned Clearview, Tex., school building, drives Crider's fine 25th mystery featuring Sheriff Dan Rhodes (after 2017's Dead, to Begin With). The day before the murder, Rhodes rescued the man, then calling himself Cal Stinson, from a local troublemaker, Kenny Lambert, who ran him off the road and then pulled a gun on him. The lawman defused the situation, but after Stinson is killed, Rhodes wonders whether Lambert still intended Stinson harm. The investigation dovetails with Clearview Mayor Calvin Clement's awkward request that Rhodes discover who's behind a new website that has embarrassed Clement's administration. Rhodes learns that Stinson's real name was Lawrence Gates, and that Gates, who launched the website, was obsessed with the debate about what to do with the school where he was found dead. Crider (1941 2018) created a completely plausible fictional sleuth with a welcome sense of humor in Rhodes; fans will miss him.
