Showing results by author "Ben Rehder" in All Categories

Charlie Dunbar had big plans for the summer break, but becoming a fugitive was nowhere on the list. Even more unexpected, his partner in crime is his own ailing grandfather. Now they're on the run, trying to make it across the country to see a special kind of doctor, while the world becomes mesmerized by their journey. They are the subject of heated debates on cable news channels. Thousands of people voice their support on Facebook fan pages. And Charlie's own parents appear on live TV to plead for him to come home safely. But Charlie isn't ready yet.

Safari Adventure is a small but popular zoo that entertains visitors from all over Texas - until one morning when most of the animals escape and a body is found on the premises. Game warden John Marlin works closely with the sheriff’s office, at first to capture the animals, and then to solve the mystery of the missing zookeeper. But local good old boys Red O’Brien and Billy Don Craddock just might figure it all out first, after they pick up a hitchhiker with a questionable past and some inside information that makes him a prime suspect.

When the manager of a fast-food restaurant is accused of bullying an employee to the point of attempted suicide, Roy Ballard and Mia Madison are hired to document his behavior. As they look deeper, they learn that another employee quit abruptly a few months earlier and hasn’t been seen since. Did she really leave the state, as the manager claims? Roy and Mia simply want to confirm that she’s okay, but even her family members back home don’t have any answers. But Roy and Mia won’t stop digging until justice is served.

Meet Roy Ballard, freelance videographer with a knack for catching insurance cheats. He's working a routine case, complete with hours of tedious surveillance, when he sees something that shakes him to the core. There, with the subject, is a little blond girl wearing a pink top and denim shorts - the same outfit worn by Tracy Turner, a six-year-old abducted the day before. When the police are skeptical of Ballard's report - and with his history, who can blame them? - it's the beginning of the most important case of his life.

The first three fun, fast-paced Roy Ballard mysteries, now in a single box set. This audiobook includes: Gone the Next, Get Busy Dying, and If I Had a Nickel.

Lennox Armbruster was struck by a speeding vehicle - but was it an accident or an insurance scam gone wrong? Roy Ballard is hired to find out, and he soon learns there’s a third possibility: attempted murder. Joe Jankowski, the man who hit Armbruster, is a tough-talking player in the construction industry, and a feud with one of his former employees has shown that he has a temper to match his brash personality. When Roy and his partner Mia Madison attempt to dig deeper, they learn just how far Jankowski will go to shut down their investigation.

When Blanco County rancher Phil Colby encounters a beautiful trespasser bathing in his creek, he has plenty of questions, but she isn’t offering any answers. Before long, Colby realizes she’s on the run. But from what? Over time, he earns her trust, and she begins to share her story.

The trouble at the Conlee’s lakeside estate begins when vandals topple and destroy an expensive Italian fountain. Then they slash the tires and damage the paint job on a Jaguar. That’s when Roy Ballard's client, the insurance company, asks him to catch the vandal in the act and prevent future claims. Surprisingly, the homeowner, Norman Conlee, opposes the idea. He intends to address the problem himself by fencing the property and keeping his revolver handy. Eventually, though, he gives in, and Roy goes to work.

Kendyl Jordan is a beautiful woman who drives an eye-catching classic car—until the car goes missing, possibly with something of great value hidden inside it. Can Roy Ballard help her find it? Despite Ballard’s budding reputation, Kendyl learns he’s not even a private investigator, he’s a legal videographer with very little experience. Still, he seems to have a knack for the job, and it doesn’t take him long to ID a couple of dangerous suspects. That’s when the case takes more twists and turns than a winding Texas Hill Country road.

When the 102-year-old inventor of an amazing new hunting product is murdered, the clues point toward the Endicotts, a controversial reality-show family. Did one of the members do something desperate to claim the invention as their own and boost their waning popularity? Blanco County game warden John Marlin intends to find out, if he can prevent his best friend from having a deadly run-in with the prime suspect. Stag Party is the eighth novel in Ben Rehder's hilarious Blanco County mystery series.

It's the week before deer hunting season, as close to a statewide holiday as you get in Texas, and the locals are getting restless. Game Warden John Marlin has his hands full with poaching complaints coming in faster than he can write out-of-season tickets. Then a call of a different sort comes in. A man dressed up in some sort of deer costume has been shot at the Circle S ranch, and witnesses are reporting a massive wild-eyed buck prancing about the pasture in a lovesick frenzy.

On opening day of dove season in Blanco County, Jimmy Ray Gladstone is confronted, then shot, by an attractive stranger with an unusual physical characteristic. But who is she, and how did she know about the robbery Jimmy Ray and his brother Russell had been planning? Game Warden John Marlin will have to figure it out on his own, because the sheriff’s office is stretched thin, Jimmy Ray has a head injury and isn’t making much sense, and Russell is nowhere to be found.

After a high-school football star dies in a late-night motorcycle collision with a wild pig, the boy's wealthy father comes up with a creative scheme to rid Blanco County of the feral pests: He tattoos the ear of one particular pig, then offers a $50,000 reward for anyone who shoots it. Game warden John Marlin is not pleased-chiefly because the bounty is likely to bring a wave of poachers and trespassers to the area. The tension rises even higher when the death of the local boy turns out to be more complicated than it originally appeared.

Life in rural Blanco County, Texas, isn't what most folks would call exciting - and that suits game warden John Marlin just fine. He's happy to spend his days and nights protecting the local wildlife from poachers. But when the tequila-slamming, skirt-chasing treasurer of the local Rotary Club goes missing and his vehicle is found in the river the day after a flood, Marlin finds himself in charge of the search efforts.

Life can get a little wild from time to time for John Marlin, the game warden in Blanco County, Texas - but few incidents compare to the stories flying around town at the start of this new deer season. Hunters are reporting an incredible sight: A six-foot-tall, drop-dead gorgeous blonde is roaming the woods, searching out camouflage-clad men with guns and disarming them with powers of seduction the likes of which none of them have ever come across before. Everyone has a hearty laugh at the expense of a few embarrassed hunters, until one of their own turns up dead in the woods. Now Marlin has a real mystery to deal with.

An unidentified wild creature is on the loose in Blanco County, and, over the protests of game warden John Marlin, the locals have convinced themselves they're dealing with a mythical vampirish beast called a chupacabra. It doesn't help Marlin's cause when a dead body turns up with a fang-like wound in its neck.

This box set includes two mystery novels written by Edgar and Shamus Award finalist Ben Rehder. Included are Buck Fever (first novel in the Blanco County mystery series) and Gone the Next (first novel in the Roy Ballard mystery series).

Welcome to Ben Rehder's Blanco County, Texas, where the right to bear arms is about to go very, very wrong. In Gun Shy, the National Weapons Alliance rally in support of every American's right to bear arms is meant to garner huge publicity. And the host of the event is none other than the NWA's newest spokesman, handsome country superstar Mitch Campbell. What nobody suspects is that the Stetson-wearing, gun-toting, bull-riding Campbell is a fraud.

Deke Gilbert was a legend on the central Texas demolition derby circuit, until a suspicious late-night crash ended his life. Unfortunately, Deke left behind a teenage daughter, Christie, who now has nowhere to go. That’s when good ol’ boys Red O’Brien and Billy Don Craddock step up and, in a rare moment, do the right thing. They give Christie a place to stay until her 18th birthday, just a few months away. But things get complicated when Christie brings home gossip that draws Red and Billy Don into an investigation of Deke’s death.

Red O’Brien and Billy Don Craddock are finishing a construction project for one of their regular customers when he makes an unexpected request - help him regain custody of his beloved beagle, Teddy. The way they go about it is a howl.