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This page lists novels that feature the professor of English literature at a college in Texas, Carl Burns.

One Dead Dean

Bill Crider

1988

A Carl Burns novel.

"Hartley Gorman College, in Pecan City, Texas, is hardly a bastion of serious scholarship. The little Baptist school is more interested in shielding its students from the evil influence of The World, The Flesh, and The Devil than in turning out future Nobelists. But its staff, by and large, is worthy of a more demanding institution; they are victims of a glutted market in PhDs and they do the best they can. So it is they who are most upset at Dean Elmore's "secret plan" to award credit hours for 'undirected study' by 'independent scholars' - in plain words, to turn the school into a diploma mill. Which may be why Dean Elmore, shortly after unveiling his plan, is found bludgeoned to death at his desk. It is certainly why, at his funeral, there is not a wet eye in the house. Or so observes Carl Burns, Hartley Gorman professor of English literature, through whose eyes we see both the crime and the larger picture of this wacky denominational Texas school."

Dying Voices

Bill Crider

1989

A Carl Burns novel.

"Pecan City, Texas, is a quiet, uneventful town. Hartley Gorman is a sedate, fundamentalist college. English professor Carl Burns is about to begin yet another year in such a place, with only the eccentricities of his fellow teachers to entertain him. Even Burns, perpetual worrier that he is, envisions the worst of his problems to be the pigeons that have roosted in the attic above his office and the uninspired students that have enrolled for his classes. But what Burns hasn't counted on is the Edward Street Seminar, a conference that Burns has been assigned to run, which honors one Edward Street, former HGC professor and, lately, Hollywood celebrity. When Street comes back to Hartley Gorman and proceeds to offend everyone in town, and then turns up dead in his motel room, there is no shortage of suspects and Burns really begins to worry!."

. . . A Dangerous Thing

Bill Crider

1994

A Carl Burns novel.

"Professor Carl Burns knew the new dean wasn't going to work out when she bought the two goats. And that was the least of the problems. Hartley Gorman College was being attacked - with a vengeance - by the forces of political correctness, and the new dean was an unreconstructed hippie. Courses would have to be rewritten, manners watched... and everyone knew Burns should have been the new dean, anyway. As if this weren't enough to contend with, Tom Henderson's fatal fall through a window definitely wasn't part of the planned curriculum. But figuring out whodunit is going to be a lot more interesting for Burns than grading papers for his developmental English class."

The Nighttime is the Right Time

Bill Crider

2000

A short story collection.

"The Nighttime is the Right Time is a collection of short fiction from the author of the popular Sheriff Dan Rhodes series. In these 11 previously published tales, we meet a detective who also happens to be a werewolf; investigate two separate missing-animal cases; tag along with series characters Carl Burns (the amateur-sleuth English teacher) and Dan Rhodes; watch Elvis Presley hunting a vampire; and check out a handful of other interesting puzzles."

• Gored
• Cap'n Bob And Gus
• Poo-Poo
• See What The Boys In The Locked Room Will Have
• The Santa Claus Caper
• It Happened At Grandmother's House
• The Nighttime Is The Right Time
• An Evening Out With Carl
• Blest Be The Ties
• King Of The Night
• How I Found A Cat, Lost True Love, And Broke The Bank At Monte Carlo

Dead Soldiers

Bill Crider

2004

A Carl Burns novel.

"First, someone steals several valuable toy soldiers from the collection of the dean of a small liberal arts school. The dean asks Carl Burns, Chair of the English Department, to look into things. Then a college board member is killed, and one of the stolen soldiers is found at the scene. After another attempted murder, another soldier is found, making a clear link between the stolen toys and the shooting. Burns begins asking questions and finds himself involved with a varied cast of characters, all of whom appear to have some connection to both toy soldiers and the murder."