"Dead, to Begin With"

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 his newest novel, Dead, to Begin With, the 24th Dan Rhodes Mystery, and reported the following:

I’ve been doing this for years now, and every year I swear I’m going to have something really exciting happen on page 69 in my next book. But what we have in Dead, to Begin With is two men arguing over a brown paper bag at a garage sale:

Rhodes looked at the sack. It an ordinary brown paper bad, not a very big one, and Rhodes could see that someone had written “$1" on the side with a black marker.

“Are you armed, Ted?” Rhodes asked.

“I got a license.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Yeah, I’m carrying. It’s in a holster in the small of my back.”

Ted wore a brown nylon jacket that zipped up the front. It hung several inches below his waist and easily concealed the weapon.

“I’m going to come take the sack,” Rhodes said. “Don’t reach for the pistol.”

Okay, so it’s not an explosion or a knife fight, but it’s something that would make you curious, right? Will Ted try anything? What’s in the bag? You’ll have to read the book to find out.

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, Compound Murder, Half in Love with Artful Death, Between the Living and the Dead, and Survivors Will Be Shot Again.

Learn about Crider's choice of actors to portray Dan Rhodes and Seepy Benton on the big screen.

Writers Read: Bill Crider.

--Marshal Zeringue