Bill Crider
Bill Crider (July 28, 1941 – February 12, 2018) was an American author of crime fiction among other work. Biography. He received a Master of Arts degree at the University of North Texas, in Denton. Later, he taught English at Howard Payne University for twelve years, before earning a Ph.D. degree at the University of Texas at Austin, where he wrote a dissertation on the hardboiled detective novel. He then moved to Alvin, Texas, with his wife, where he was the Chair of the Division of English and Fine Arts at Alvin Community College. He retired in August 2002  to become a full-time writer. He was the author of the Professor Sally Good and the Carl Burns mysteries, the Sheriff Dan Rhodes series, the Truman Smith P.I. series, and wrote three books in the series under the pseudonym "Jack Buchanan". He was also the writer of several westerns and horror novels. Personal life and death. Crider had two children, Angela Crider Neary and Allen Crider, with his wife of 49 years Judy (née Stutts, 1943–2014). Crider died at his home in Alvin, Texas, on February 12, 2018 of cancer, at the age of 76.