"The Wild Hog Murders"

Bill Crider is the winner of two Anthony Awards and is an Edgar Award finalist.

He applied the Page 69 Test to his latest novel, The Wild Hog Murders, Volume 18 of the Sheriff Dan Rhodes Mysteries, and reported the following:

In The Wild Hog Murders, page 69 is the first page of Chapter 8, so it’s really only half a page, book design being what it is. It’s the first appearance in the book of Seepy Benton, a professor at the local community college. Sheriff Rhodes makes a stop at Benton’s house to check up on Bruce, a dog that Rhodes has removed from his former home and turned over to Benton to care for. Anyone who’s kept up with Rhodes’s career over the years knows about his propensity to rescue animals from bad situations. It’s a continuing theme.

Seepy Benton was a character in my series about Sally Good, a college English teacher who occasionally got involved in murder cases. Benton liked to think he helped her out. He was a popular character with the readers, and so I moved him to a new job in Blacklin County where he could carry on his misguided attempts to solve crimes. Now he thinks he has a semi-official job with the Sheriff’s Department, having completed the Citizens’ Sheriff’s Academy. Rhodes likes Benton and puts up with him, so there’s a good opportunity for comedy. I think that’s pretty evident on page 69, and I enjoy writing scenes where Rhodes and Benton play against each other. If the readers get as much fun out of reading the scenes as I do from writing them, then we should all be happy.

Learn more about the book and author at Bill Crider's website and blog.

Read the Page 69 Test entries for Crider's A Mammoth Murder, Murder Among the OWLS, Of All Sad Words, Murder in Four Parts, and Murder in the Air, as well as an excellent write-up about Dan Rhodes on the big screen at "My Book, The Movie."

Check out the complete list of books in the Page 69 Test Series.

--Marshal Zeringue