I’ve never heard of Bill Crider, who was apparently quite a prolific writer of American crime fiction. I doubt if I would ever have picked up one of his books, but a friend said she had read ‘A Ghost of a Chance’ and thought it quite a good light read. She said she wasn’t going to read it again, so I put it on my to-read shelf, and decided to try it a few days ago.
Sheriff Dan Rhodes is the main character in this book; I gather there is a whole series of books featuring him, so perhaps it’s not ideal jumping straight into the tenth book of a lengthy series. There are a lot of characters and I found it very hard to keep track of who was whom. It might have been easier if I’d read the earlier books, or at least one or two of them.
However, none of the characters seemed very realistic to me, possibly because they’re mostly police officers or other officials in a small American town, with a very different mindset from my circle of friends and acquaintances. The opening scenes take place in a county jail, which is rumoured to be haunted, and that’s even further from my field of experience. However I was determined to read the book, so I kept going.
It’s quite a complicated story. There are two murders, but as is the case for so-called ‘cosy’ crime fiction, they aren’t described in any gory detail, and the first one happens early enough in the book that he hasn’t even been introduced yet, so there’s no emotional problem. Not that there really was with the second one either; I didn’t feel any kind of empathy for anyone in this book.
Dan Rhodes - who, for some reason, is only called by his surname - seems to be a likeable person. Most of the book is told from his perspective; he clearly cares about people, and also about justice. We see somewhat into his mind as he makes decisions on what to do, and as he interacts with other people.
There’s not just a couple of murders and a supposed ghost - there are valuable artifacts being stolen from cemeteries, and there’s a car which has rather a large amount of an illegal drug in it. Everything turns out to be connected, and Sheriff Rhodes manages to solve everything. But it’s not a mystery in the style of Agatha Christie. There are no false clues. There’s no getting into the mindset of any of the suspects. Everything is confusing, then something clicks into place in Rhodes’ mind, and he figures everything out.
I understand about intuition, and hunches; in his shoes I might have done the same thing. But it doesn’t make for a particularly interesting storyline. And some of the important factors - some of the characters, and an emu farm - aren’t even mentioned until over half-way through the book. So as there’s no way a reader could have solved the various crimes, it felt a bit frustrating.
Like the friend who passed it on to me, I don’t suppose I’ll be reading this again, and I don’t have any inclination to look for other books by this author. However, don't take my word for it. Bill Crider was evidently a popular author; but if you like this style and want to read this book, I would recommend trying at least one or two of the earlier Dan Rhodes books.
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