Finished: "Murder in the Air" by Bill Crider

Finished: Murder in the Air by Bill Crider, 2010, 9780312386955.


Typical Sheriff Rhodes novel.  Lots of fun that ends too soon.  I do not know if Ivy Rhodes would argue.

Spoilers to follow.  Lester Hamilton owns a major chicken farming operation in Blacklin County.  Everyone living and working nearby hates Lester because the chicken manure stinks everything up.  (I know the feeling.)  Sheriff Dan Rhodes has plenty of suspects when Lester turns up drowned.

Rhodes has angry neighbors and inheritors to interview and investigate.  Deputy Ruth Grady makes several appearances.  Deputy Buddy gets in a snit.  Rhodes does not get beat up but does shoot on two separate occassions.

Aw, screw the plot summary.  The series is always worth reading and traveling Blacklin County through the eyes of the equally pragmatic and philosophical Rhodes is always a pleasure.

Comments:
1.  Extremely gratuitous use Coyote Connection.  Including author, plot description and pub date.
2. New squad cars.
3.  Rhodes has a new gun.  Every other cop in the country gets something bigger.  Rhodes downgrades to a .32.  A County Commissioner trying to talk Rhodes into getting an M16.  A futile effort.
4. Gratuitously eccentric Seepy Benton.
5. Snotty community college English professor.
6.  Recurring theme of small town nostalgia by Rhodes and others.  The town is still there but so much has changed.
7.  Recurring theme: Rhodes and Ivy sex.
8.  Gratuitous Kingston Trio
9.  Memorized poetry.
10.  Bad puns.