"Half in Love with Artful Death"

Bill Crider is the winner of two Anthony Awards and an Edgar Award finalist. An English college professor for many years, he’s published more than seventy-five crime, Western, and horror novels, as well as a number of children’s books.

Crider applied the Page 69 Test to Half in Love with Artful Death, the 21st Dan Rhodes Mystery, and reported the following:

I’ve done this a few times now, and every time I do it, I promise myself that I’m going to put a really great explosion or shoot-out on page 69 of my next book. And then I don’t do it. What we have this time is part of a conversation between Sheriff Dan Rhodes and two other county employees, Hack and Lawton, who are discussing what they believe is Rhodes’s grouchy mood. Their conclusion? Low T.

“Low T. Happens when a man gets to be a certain age. He gets the low T.”

“One thing that it does to a man is make him touchy,” Lawton said.

“Another thing is that a man gets thin spots in his hair,” Hack said. “Low T can be a serious condition.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rhodes said.

Of course Hack and Lawton, who are always bedeviling Rhodes, are happy to explain to him what his problem is, and they do go on to discuss the real subject of the conversation, a recent robbery. Would this make anyone want to read the rest of the book? I hope so, but it’s not like it’s an explosion, which I’m including next time, for sure.

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, Murder in the Air, The Wild Hog Murders, Murder of a Beauty Shop Queen, and Compound Murder.

Learn about Crider's choice of actors to portray Dan Rhodes et al on the big screen.

--Marshal Zeringue