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Twins Larry and Terry Crawford live a secretive life in a mobile home set back on a hill on the outskirts of Clearview, a town in Rhodes’s jurisdiction. Seepy Benton, a math teacher newly arrived in Blacklin County, believes the brothers are operating a meth lab, and he tells Max Schwartz, the owner of a Clearview music store what he suspects. The two men have attended Rhodes’ Academy, and they make their suspicions known to the Sheriff’s office. A limited investigation turns up no sign of a meth lab. But when the mobile home explodes and Terry Crawford is murdered, Seepy and Max come under the scrutiny of Sheriff Rhodes. The men seem innocent enough, but Seepy is especially anxious to join the investigation and calls Rhodes regularly with clues he believes are important to the case. Things grow worse when a moonshine still is discovered on the Crawford property. The word around town is that Larry and his brother were selling the alcohol to local restaurants in the county. Then Larry and the still go missing. At the same time, two well-known criminals return to town. Rhodes is forced to rethink everything about the case when another man is murdered and his own life is threatened. How large was the Crawfords’ operation? And why would someone want Terry Crawford dead? Dan Rhodes follows a twisted track to capture a nasty killer in this fifteenth Sheriff Rhodes mystery by Texan Bill Crider. Crider's characters are as dryly humorous as ever and the minor residents of the country are as delightfully peculiar as they usually are. Rhodes sends Seepy to the home of an elderly woman who claims raccoons have infested her attic, then pairs him with Max to look after a gentleman who believes space aliens have stolen his electricity. Deputy Ruth Grady also plays a part in the story as she does a lot of the legwork in the case. Crider uses these diversions to lighten the mood of the story and also to show the kinds of mundane cases police handle on a daily basis. Rhodes’s easy-going style of detecting and down-home humor makes this a pleasurable addition to a long-running series.
Reviewed by Mary V. Welk, April 2008
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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