Campaign for the American Reader: Pg. 69: "A Mammoth Murder"

Bill Crider is the Texas-reared and Anthony Award-winning author of the Sheriff Dan Rhodes series, which includes his latest novel, A Mammoth Murder. He's also the author of--among many other books--We'll Always Have Murder, the first novel in a series featuring Humphrey Bogart as a celebrity sleuth.

I asked Bill to apply the "page 69 test" to A Mammoth Murder.

Here is what he reported:

If you've ever wondered why I'm not a best-selling writer, as who hasn't, just check out page 69 of A Mammoth Murder. It's full of reasons why.

For one thing, it's a conversation between Sheriff Dan Rhodes and Hack Lawton, the dispatcher at the Blacklin County Jail. Hack never gives up information voluntarily. He prefers to have Rhodes draw if out of him. So the conversation that begins on page 69 with Rhodes asking about important calls doesn't end until page 72.

For another thing, Hack loves digressions, which in this case leads to ruminations about Blacklin County's famous romance novelist, Vernell Lindsey, whose goats are on the loose again. The goats, named Shirley, Goodness, and Mercy, are often a source of complaints by Vernell's neighbors, and, sad to say, out-of-control goats constitute major crime in Blacklin County.

By now you can probably see what I mean. Best-selling novelists write about serial killers who skin their victims or madmen seeking world domination or guys who are going to explode if they get more than ten feet from another human being. They don't write about goats or recalcitrant dispatchers in the sheriff's department.

It doesn't matter, though. I've resigned myself to being a lower-than-midlist writer since I write mainly for my own amusement in the first place. I'll keep doing it until they cancel the series or I decide to stop, whichever comes first.

Many thanks to Bill for the input.

Click here to read an excerpt from A Mammoth Murder.

Bill runs an entertaining and information-packed blog ... now with video clips.

Click here to see an almost complete list of the books written by Bill. Amazing.

A couple of years ago Crider interviewed Crider about...Crider. Check it out here.