WINNING CAN BE MURDER

The usual torpor in Clearview, Texas, where Sheriff Dan Rhodes runs the tiny police force (Murder Most Fowl, 1994, etc.), has given way to football fever as the Clearview Catamounts, the high school team, beat the Garton Greyhounds—one more victory and the Catamounts could be headed for the State level. When the body of assistant coach Brady Meredith is found shot to death on the night of the big win, the Sheriff turns up lots of rumors and not much more—possible steroid use by team members; Meredith's interest in the lush wife of special teams' coach Bob Deedham; the presence in town of drug-dealing motorcycle bums Rapper and Nellie. The Sheriff's own sighting of Meredith with gambler Hayes Ford adds another dimension to the puzzle. Could Meredith have been shaving points? The killing of Ford only days later makes the investigation more urgent, but the town's citizens seem interested mainly in how the team will be affected while their ever more laconic Sheriff seems almost to back into a lackluster solution. Readers enamored of the folksy Texas scene will get their fill. But those who look for animated characters and a bit of suspense in their whodunits won't find 'em in this flat-footed outing.