Death on the Move - A Dan Rhodes Mystery (Dan Rhodes Mysteries): Bill Crider: Amazon.com: Kindle Store: Someone in Blacklin County, Texas, is being disrespectful of the dead, and Sheriff Dan Rhodes must put a stop to it.
First, there's the matter of the bodies at Ballinger's Funeral Home and the apparent misplacing of their valuables; the bereaved are beside themselves. There'd best be immediate action or the bell could toll again, this time for Sheriff Dan's reputation as the guardian of justice and decency in these parts.
As if that weren't enough to contend with, yet another body tumbles into Sheriff Dan's path—out of a closet this time, and trussed up in most unsavory fashion. More disrespect, but obviously a separate case from the funeral home. Or is it?
Meanwhile, with Hack Jensen and his sidekick Lawton (more comic than cop team) minding the jail, thank heavens there's Deputy Ruth Grady for backup. On the personal front, his fiancee, Ivy Daniel, is supportive as always, but a mystery rears its perplexing head here as well—namely, will Sheriff Dan propose or will he not?
Tough questions on every side, and guess who's expected to come up with the answers before he gets carried away by Death On the Move?
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Cursed to Death - A Dan Rhodes Mystery (Dan Rhodes Mysteries): Bill Crider: Amazon.com: Kindle Store: In tiny Blacklin County, Texas, a curse is nothing more than a four-letter word hollered in a barroom or muttered in the heat. So Sheriff Dan Rhodes is more curious than concerned when he dutifully responds to a complaint of witchcraft.
When Dr. Samuel Martin, the local dentist — and unpopular landlord — claims he's been hexed by a tenant, Rhodes does his best to smooth things out between the distressed D.D.S. and the would-be witch. But in two shakes of a black cat's tail, the good doctor disappears... and his wife turns up bludgeoned to death.
For Rhodes, it means there's a bad moon rising over Blacklin County. And now he's got to do the voodoo he does best — asking pointed questions and extracting the painful truth from some tight-lipped suspects who also bite...
You can see the full title of this book on the cover to the left. It's an entertaining biography of Davy Crockett, but it's also a road trip, a story about the power of myth and Walt Disney, and a lot more.
One of the amazing things about Born on a Mountaintop is the number of people who were influenced by the Walt Disney version of Crockett's story to devote a big part of their lives to research into Crockett's life and to preserving his memory. Thompson is just one of them, and in his case it's a generational thing. His young daughter became instantly enchanted when she heard the famous song from which the book draws its title. And is there anybody around my age who can't sing the rest of the line that follows the title? And more besides? In addition to the song, at least in the daughter's case, there's even a Nic Cage connection. Who would have guessed?
What did I learn from the book? Here are two things I'll remember. One, Crockett preferred to be called David. And two, he was quite likely the first author ever to go on a promotional tour for his book. Now we know who's to blame.
Thompson wants to try to separate the truth about Crockett from the myths, and he spends a year "walking where Davy walked," visiting all the places where Crockett lived or passed some time. In every one of them there's a local historian who knows all the stories, some of which might even be true. One conclusion that Thompson reaches, however, is that there's no way to be sure, no way to separate the myth from the reality in every case or even in most cases. Thompson does an admirable job of presenting the stories and the evidence supporting or debunking them, and he does it with skill and in an engaging writing style that makes reading the book a lot of fun.
The most controversial part of Crockett's life is his death, and Thompson spends a lot of time discussing how Crockett might have met his end at the Alamo. He does a great job of it, too, though again, nobody knows what really happened and never will.
Three more things I learned. If I knew, I'd forgotten that Tom Blackburn, a western writer whose name I've seen on many books but never read, wrote the screenplay for the Disney series. Also, Blackburn wrote the lyrics for the famous song. I hope he had a piece of the action. Finally, Fess Parker got the role of Crockett because of his bit part in Them.
I liked this book a lot, and it's highly recommended for anybody who's curious about Crockett, about the Alamo, or about how a three-hour TV series can change the world.
Leonard Q. Ross, The Dark Corner, Century Mystery, 1945
AFP:: A lost medieval city that thrived on a mist-shrouded Cambodian mountain 1,200 years ago has been discovered by archaeologists using revolutionary airborne laser technology, a report said.
