Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Buck Fever: Blanco County Mysteries, #1
    Unavailable
    Buck Fever: Blanco County Mysteries, #1
    Unavailable
    Buck Fever: Blanco County Mysteries, #1
    Ebook286 pages4 hours

    Buck Fever: Blanco County Mysteries, #1

    By Ben Rehder

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Edgar and Shamus Award finalist Ben Rehder's Blanco County comic mysteries have made best-of-the-year lists in Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, and Field & Stream. 

    Buck Fever was nominated for the prestigious Edgar Award for Best First Novel. 

    Description: 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. Marlin's seen a lot in his years, but this is wilder than he could have imagined: the man in the deer suit is a good friend, and the whacked-out whitetail isn't exactly a stranger either. It's the beginning of a mad, frantic weekend in Blanco County, one that will see a few more men shot, an invasion by Colombians with more than hunting on their minds, and damn near the end of Marlin's life. Ben Rehder serves it all up with a huge helping of humor in this debut comic mystery that will firmly establish him as the funniest crime writer in Texas. 

    REVIEWS FOR BUCK FEVER: 

    "This debut novel is a complete success, tearing out of Texas chock-full of characters so nutty and events so strange it seems as if they must be real. The writing here is confident and vigorous; the tone is quintessentially Texan and relentlessly wry. There's sure to be a long career for this happy, wacky series." 
    —Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) 

    "This is a wild and crazy first novel, crowded with weird people, unusual relationships (both animal and human), and frequent humor that will appeal to fans of Carl Hiaasen, Tim Dorsey, and other comic mystery writers. Strongly recommended for most collections." 
    —Library Journal (Starred Review) 

    "It's been our pleasure to be among the first reviewers to take notice of several writers who eventually became best sellers, including Nevada Barr, Lee Child and Randy Wayne White. Ben Rehder has what it takes to join that group. Imagine Carl Hiaasen with a Texas accent…" 
    —Denver Post 

    "Briskly paced, amusing, spiced with deftly drawn good-old-boy portraits: an altogether promising debut." 
    —Kirkus Reviews 

    "…side-splitting…akin to the Tom Robbins style of humor writing." 
    —ESPN Outdoors 

    "Austinite Ben Rehder's debut novel is the summer's best find. With a nod and a wink to Carl Hiaasen, Rehder comes out swinging with a sardonic Tex-centric look at trophy deer hunters, beer-guzzling poachers, and Game Warden John Marlin—the man charged with keeping them all in line. Buck Fever is too fun to be legal." 
    —Texas Monthly 

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBen Rehder
    Release dateMar 17, 2015
    ISBN9781507060643
    Unavailable
    Buck Fever: Blanco County Mysteries, #1
    Author

    Ben Rehder

    Ben Rehder is a native Texan and a resident of Austin. He graduated from the University of Texas in 1986, and then entered the field of advertising. Rehder is an avid hunter and outdoorsman, interests which have fueled his fiction and magazine writing. His Blanco County mysteries have been nominated for the Edgar, Lefty, and Barry Awards. He lives near Austin, Texas, where he was born and raised.

    Related to Buck Fever

    Related ebooks

    Police Procedural For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: David Heska Wanbli Weiden

      Dec 9, 2020

      Little did I know that, in September, just two weeks after the release of my novel, I’d be sitting in my home office in Colorado giving a reading in front of a computer, and that a completely naked eighty-year-old man would appear on the screen. The

      5 min read

    • Article

      Boston Manner

      Feb 7, 2020

      Boston Manner
      3 min read

    • Article

      Felix Francis

      Jan 13, 2022

      Felix Francis
      6 min read

    • Article

      'Greeks Bearing Gifts' Will Be The Last In The Popular 'Bernie Gunther' Series Begun In Nazi Germany

      Apr 5, 2018

      The 'Bernie Gunther' books were uniformly superb and reflected their hangdog protagonist: tough, cynical, very quotable, and ultimately, even quixotically, idealistic.

      3 min read

    • Article

      LeTteR Bocks

      Aug 4, 2022

      ◻PLEASE find attached this trademark from a box of eggs, which appears to show a chicken lifting its leg to crack off an eggy one. Susan Butcher, Australia ◻FORMER Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been criticised for meeting an ex-KGB agent without h

      13 min read

    • Article

      Babe In The Woods

      Jul 11, 2021

      Babe In The Woods
      2 min read

    • Article

      Islanders

      Oct 13, 2022

      Islanders
      8 min read

    • Article

      Odd Squad

      Jun 16, 2021

      Odd Squad
      3 min read

    • Article

      Dave Barry 2020

      Sep 20, 2019

      Dave Barry 2020
      12 min read

    • Article

      The Southern Agenda

      May 17, 2021

      The Southern Agenda
      11 min read

    • Article

      Roosevelt’s Posse

      Jul 23, 2019

      Roosevelt’s Posse
      10 min read

    • Article

      79 The Terrible Grinning Men

      Sep 10, 2020

      79 The Terrible Grinning Men
      8 min read

    • Article

      Victoria Secrets

      Feb 24, 2021

      Victoria Secrets
      4 min read

    • Article

      ‘There Is Nothing Wrong With Offending People’: Roddy Doyle On Getting The Band Back Together

      Sep 9, 2022

      There is a speech in Roddy Doyle’s 1987 novel, The Commitments, I’ve long wanted to ask him about. “The Irish are the N-words of Europe, lads,” the band’s manager, Jimmy Rabbitte, tells his charges. He’s trying to explain to them what a bunch of past

      6 min read

    • Article

      “Really?”

      Jun 2, 2022

      “Really?”
      6 min read

    • Article

      Fitting In

      Oct 1, 2021

      Fitting In
      6 min read

    • Article

      Music

      Sep 21, 2022

      AN INVENTORY Jonathan Cape, 368pp, £20 Caroline Sullivan in the Guardian said the book ‘ambles through 25 years, tracking Cocker’s worldview as it takes shape in his home city of Sheffield. It opens in the present day, as he’s clearing out the loft o

      3 min read

    • Article

      Succession Recap: Series Three, Episode Seven – Kendall’s Party Is Well And Truly Pooped

      Nov 29, 2021

      Spoiler alert: this recap is for people watching Succession season three, which airs on HBO in the US and Sky Atlantic in the UK. Do not read on unless you have watched episode seven. Kendall’s big 4-0 turned out to be a big no-no. Here’s your full p

      6 min read

    • Article

      Ricko’s Not-so-modern Life

      Dec 11, 2018

      Ricko DeWilde steps off of a small wooden boat on the Nenana River and onto dry land. The steep, muddy ridge he must ascend to continue our goose hunt is too tall for him to see over the top, but it’s not too tall to climb. He eyes it warily. “I don’

      8 min read

    • Article

      What The Hang

      Jul 2, 2023

      Hear ye. Hear ye. All rise for Judge Luxon. The Court of Bang ’Em Up For Life is now in session. When it comes to election-year tough-on-crime policies, the Nats are repeat offenders. It’s a bit boring. This would have added a bit of zing: at the ann

      4 min read

    Reviews for Buck Fever

    3.5/5

    64 ratings7 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Poachers and deer hunters and love stories. This is another great episode in the life of Blanco county's inhabitants. Marlin the game warden is vigilant against the poachers and protective of his friends. This is the second book I've read by Ben Rehder and I recommend him to anyone who enjoys a story based on odd and endearing characters.
    • 5/5
      Well drawn characters, sense of humor, easy style, and a fast pace.
    • 4/5
      Ben Rehder does characters well. His ongoing series of Blanco county shenanigans is always fun to read or listen to. This one is about drug smuggling on a hunting camp/ranch in the county. A corrupt local with an 'in' to local politicians obtains a ranch through devious means and begins to smuggle drugs by using game on his ranch. Not very plausible, but the back stories and characters who are in the story make it a fun read. Like bubble gum, enjoyable, and fun for a little while. Some of Ben's other works are better.
    • 4/5
      I had never heard of this book or the author before, but I found it on Amazon for the Kindle, and the description sounded kind of interesting. It was free, so I decided to take a chance. I'm glad I did.

      This is the first in a series of Blanco county, Texas mysteries. It involves deer hunting season, deer ranching, drug smuggling, and just general corruption. In some ways, it reminds me of two of my favorite authors: Carl Hiassen and Tim Dorsey. Like Hiassen and Dorsey, Buck Fever is filled with humor, violence, romance, and general dumbassery. Of course, it's set in central Texas instead of Florida, and honestly, the comedy isn't as in-your-face as Hiassen's or Dorsey's. It's not as violent, or quite as funny, as Dorsey, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I lot of readers I've recommended him to don't like his books because of the violence. This series is something I think they would enjoy. There's a brief section where one of the main characters is pontificating about the benefits of hunting (and how to do it right) which might be unnecessary, but it's short and didn't interfere with the story much at all. A lot of readers may not even notice it.

      So, if you're looking for a light comic mystery, I can highly recommend Buck Fever. As mentioned, I definitely recommend it to fans of Carl Hiassen and Tim Dorsey. I look forwarding to reading more of the series.
    • 3/5
      This is entertaining tale about a Game Warden John Marlin who the week before deer season follows the trail of dancing deer back to a former lobbiest who now runs a game preserve. This preserve caters to the elite of Washington as well wealthy hunters from all over and it specializes in large bucks.

      What Marlin finds involves drugs, corruption as well as a romantic interest which leads him into a TSTL moment. I am more accustomed to see these in foolish girls, this was a turn around. There is also some really dumb rednecks in the story who were a bit tiresome because no one that beer addled would be trusted by anyone.

      I think this series may grow on me so I will try the next.
    • 4/5
      Surprisingly good for a free/cheap kindle book. Over the top characters, but I like that. I would not be adverse to reading another by this writer.
    • 3/5
      Western mystery...meh. Not even close to the Hillermans. No need to read beyond the first volume.