Friday, April 20, 2007

Bill Crider

Bill Crider is a prolific author: his most recent book is Murder Among the Owls, the 14th volume in the Sheriff Dan Rhodes Mystery series.

Last week I asked him what he was reading. His reply:
The recent death of Donald Hamilton led me to re-read a couple of his novels, Murderers' Row, from the Matt Helm series, and Line of Fire, a standalone that I admire quite a bit. In fact both these books are terrific and a reminder of just how good Hamilton was.

After finishing those two, I picked up The Watchman by Robert Crais. Joe Pike takes center stage in this one, and he's backed up by Elvis Cole in a reversal of the usual situation in books where those two appear. I moved from there to The Matter of Paradise by Brown Meggs because Meggs was recommended by Ed Gorman on his blog.

Ed also recommended the two books I'm currently reading, both of them memoirs of the writing life. I'm about three-quarters of the way through Donald Bain's Every Midget Has An Uncle Sam Costume, and I've just begun Richard Wheeler's An Accidental Novelist. I'm a sucker for books about writers and writing, so I'm really enjoying these.

That about covers it, for the moment.
Bill Crider has been a generous friend to the CftAR blogs.

He contributed Page 69 Test items for A Mammoth Murder and Murder Among the OWLS as well as an excellent entry for "My Book, The Movie."

Visit Crider's website and his blog.

--Marshal Zeringue