Cursed to Death

New York: Walker & Company, 1988. E1 - A first edition (complete numberline) hardcover book SIGNED and inscribed by Bill Crider to preivous owner on the title page in very good condition in very good dust jacket that is mylar protected. Dust jacket has some wrinkling on the edges, scattered light scratches, rubbing and scuffing, light tanning and shelf wear. Book has some bumped corners, some chipping on the right side page edges, light discoloration and shelf wear. 8.5"x5.75", 193 pages. Satisfaction Guaranteed. Sheriff Dan Rhodes, of Blacklin County, Texas, is used to bizarre complaints, but they are mostly on the order of a herd of cows loose in the church parking lot, a heavy-metal high-school band rehearsing in a neighbor's back yard, or the holdup man at the Dairy Creem waving a gun and demanding three cheeseburgers and three large orders of fries. Or maybe he'll called to a riot at the Sunny Dale nursing home, occasioned by the management's refusal to allow two late-octogenarian residents to enter into matrimony with full connubial privileges. The call that comes into the county jail a few days before Christmas seems to be in the same general category. The local dentist, Dr. Samuel Martin, is also a real-estate entrepreneur, and one of his renters has just laid a curse on him which includes, appropriately, the prophecy that all his teeth will fall out. Dan manages to calm the dentist and his opponent, but shortly afterward Dr. Martin disappears and things turn serious. No one, including the "witch," believes in the efficacy of the curse, but Martin is hardly a well-loved local practitioner (he is, rather, a well-hated local landlord) and it is easier to believe that someone wishes him ill than to understand why it is his rather lusterless wife who is found bludgeoned to death in their upscale home. Although Deputy Ruth Grady does her usual efficient job as a fingerprinter (although the sheriff has never had a case where fingerprints meant anything) and the Blacklin County Sheriff's Office has no access to the other gadgets of modern criminology, that's OK with Dan. His method is to talk to everyone involved, observe, think about it (when he is not worrying about a Christmas present for Ivy Daniel or the alarming burgeoning of his waistline). Then he will question everyone again and draw conclusions. Being a man of only moderate formal education but enormous inmate prescience, Rhodes has had satisfying success in the past with this procedure, and eventually, in this puzzling case, he will again. Dan Rhodes, widower and hesitating suitor, devotee of The Million Dollar Movie and unpremeditated master of the mutt, Speedo, is one of the most likable characters in modern crime fiction, and readers of his previous adventures will warmly welcome this new one.. Signed by Author. First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.