Tag Archives: Bill Crider

Interview with Bill Crider

Crider photoYeah, I know, it’s been a while.  This summer has been busier than I thought it would be.  I’ll be back with a review of one of the Shamus Award nominees just as soon has I can get the ebook file off my dying hard drive.  Anyway, until then, I though I’d link to an interesting interview with Bill Crider conducted by Ben Boulden.  I’m a fan of Bill’s work, and you can expect me to review some of it here at some point.  There’s some great discussion about Bill’s early work as well as his latest release in the long running Sheriff Dan Rhodes series.

Here’s the interview.

RIP, Jeremiah Healy (1948-2014)

jerry_terry

Jeremiah Healy
Photo Jim Norman

Ed Gorman and Bill Crider are reporting that Jeremiah Healy has died. Healy suffered from severe chronic depression, and this (exacerbated by alcohol) led him to take his own life.

Healy was the award winning author of the John Francis Cuddy series of private investigator novels and stories.  He also wrote legal thrillers under the name Terry Devane.  The Cuddy stories are among the best private investigator stories I’ve ever read. If you haven’t read his work, you should.

I never had the privilege of meeting him.  By all accounts he was well loved by all who knew him.  I respectfully offer my condolences to his friends and family.  My deepest sympathies, as well as my thoughts and prayers, are with his wife Sandy Balzo.

 

Death and Football in Texas

Last Death of Jack HarbinThe Last Death of Jack Harbin
Terry Shames
Seventh Street Books
Trade paper, 255 pp., $15.95
ebook $11.99
Amazon   Barnes and Noble

I missed Terry Shames’ debut novel, A Killing at Cotton Hill. It was on my radar, but before I got around to buying and reading it, a review copy of her second novel, The Last Death of Jack Harbin, showed up. I’d like to thank Lisa Michalski of Seventh Street Books for the review copy.

This is the second novel about Samuel Craddock, the retired police chief of Jarret Creek, a small town in southeast Texas. In this one, he has to solve the murder of Jack Harbin. Harbin was once one of the stars of the high school football team. He enlisted in the Army shortly before the Gulf War broke out, and when he returned he was missing his eyesight and one leg.

Shortly after his father has a fatal heart attack, Jack is found brutally stabbed in his bed. There are a number of suspects. His former best friend and teammate from high school, his estranged brother, some unknown person with a grudge. Since the current police chief has been taken away to dry out and his replacement is only slightly more competent than Barney Fife, Craddock is asked by the city council to look into the matter. Continue reading