Blanco County Mysteries Books in Order
Part ofBen Rehder Books in OrderSee the Blanco County Mysteries by Ben Rehder in order, with quick summaries, series background, and where to start with John Marlin and company.
Last updated: June 8, 2026
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Publication Order
18 books
Buck Fever
by Ben Rehder
2002
The week before deer season, John Marlin is already swamped when a man in a deer costume gets shot at the Circle S ranch. Soon he is chasing poachers, crooked power players, and a case spiraling out of control.
Bone Dry
by Ben Rehder
2003
Hunters keep reporting a stunning mystery woman in the woods, then one of them turns up dead. John Marlin has to cut through the gossip before deer season gets even uglier.
Flat Crazy
by Ben Rehder
2004
Blanco County is buzzing about a possible chupacabra, and John Marlin wants no part of the nonsense. Then a body turns up with a fang-like wound, and rumor suddenly looks a lot more dangerous.
Guilt Trip
by Ben Rehder
2005
When a hard-drinking local official goes missing after a flood and a nearby house explodes, John Marlin and the sheriff's department scramble to connect the clues. A stolen sports car only makes things stranger.
Gun Shy
by Ben Rehder
2007
As a giant gun-rights rally approaches, John Marlin gets tangled in the death of a man whose body was moved after he was killed. The case mixes murder, politics, and Blanco County tension.
Holy Moly
by Ben Rehder
2008
John Marlin is pulled into one of Blanco County's stranger murder cases, with local grudges and competing motives everywhere he turns. The mystery is messy, funny, and more dangerous than it first looks.
Hog Heaven
by Ben Rehder
2013
After a high school football star dies in a crash with a wild pig, the boy's father offers a huge reward for one tagged hog. John Marlin knows the bounty will attract chaos, and the death itself may not be simple.
Mind Game
by Ben Rehder
2013
This shorter Blanco County mystery drops John Marlin and the sheriff into a small-town problem that gets complicated fast. It is a quick case, with Rehder's usual mix of humor and trouble.
Stag Party
by Ben Rehder
2014
A 102-year-old inventor of a promising new hunting product is murdered, and suspicion falls on a reality-show family. John Marlin digs in before the case turns even deadlier for the people around him.
Bum Steer
by Ben Rehder
2015
After a young woman and a bull turn up dead, John Marlin is pulled into a case full of ranch grudges and bad choices. Blanco County supplies the usual chaos, but the stakes are real.
Point Taken
by Ben Rehder
2016
When artifact looter Sean Hudson is found with a pickaxe buried in his skull, John Marlin helps work the case. It is a layered mystery about trespassing, greed, and what people will do for buried treasure.
Dog Tag
by Ben Rehder
2017
This shorter Blanco County adventure puts Red O'Brien and Billy Don Craddock back in the middle of trouble. What starts small quickly turns into another crooked, funny mess.
Last Laugh
by Ben Rehder
2017
When a Blanco County hog hunter disappears after fighting with his girlfriend, John Marlin joins the search. A blue-collar comedian lands on the suspect list, and Red and Billy Don decide to investigate too.
Lefty Loosey
by Ben Rehder
2018
A new Blanco County case grows around Deke Gilbert, a onetime legend on the central Texas demolition derby circuit. John Marlin has to sort fact from myth as old grudges and fresh danger collide.
Free Ride
by Ben Rehder
2020
When animals are turned loose from a small exotic zoo and a dead man turns up, John Marlin faces one of Blanco County's strangest cases. The mystery widens fast, with missing people, bad luck, and danger coming from several directions.
Boom Town
by Ben Rehder
2021
When womanizer Lonnie Blair is killed in a deer blind, John Marlin looks hard at a neighboring ranch foreman with a shaky past. Meanwhile, a wellness retreat creates a second round of trouble for Red and Billy Don.
Weed Killer
by Ben Rehder
2023
Phil Colby's attempt to help a mysterious woman on his land pulls him into serious danger. Before long there are hard men, bad schemes, and plenty of Blanco County trouble in the mix.
Money Maker
by Ben Rehder
2024
On opening day of dove season, Jimmy Ray Gladstone is shot by a stranger who seems to know too much about a planned robbery. John Marlin has to make sense of a missing brother, a muddled witness, and a very strange attack.
Series background & context
At the center of the Blanco County books is John Marlin, a Texas game warden who would probably prefer a quiet week of checking hunting licenses, chasing poachers, and getting home at a decent hour. He almost never gets one. A suspicious death, a trespassing complaint, a deer-season mess, or a feud between locals is usually enough to pull him into something much bigger. That is the basic engine of the series, small local trouble that keeps opening into murder, fraud, or some other form of Texas chaos.
The setting matters as much as the plot.
These books are planted deep in Hill Country life. Ranch land, deer leases, feral hogs, county roads, old family connections, and small-town gossip are not background decoration here. They are the reason the trouble starts. Blanco County feels like a real place, full of people who know one another too well, hold grudges too long, and can turn a bad idea into a public spectacle by lunchtime.
John Marlin is the steady center. He is practical, patient, and usually the smartest person in the room, which is not always saying much. He works with the local sheriff's department when cases turn deadly, and the books keep returning to a memorable circle of locals, including his friend Phil Colby and the wonderfully disastrous pair Red O'Brien and Billy Don Craddock. Red and Billy Don are not detectives in any official sense, but they are gifted at drifting into trouble, making things worse, and occasionally stumbling onto something useful.
That mix of competence and foolishness gives the series its shape. The Blanco County books are comic mysteries, but they are not weightless. People get hurt. Money matters. Pride matters. Rehder is very good at starting with a setup that sounds almost ridiculous, a man in a deer suit, a possible chupacabra, a bounty hog, and then letting the case harden into something with real consequences. If you like mysteries that are funny without floating away from reality, this series handles that balance well.
There is not one giant ongoing plot running through every book. Instead, the pleasure comes from returning to the place and watching the relationships deepen over time. Later books sometimes lean a bit more on side characters, which makes the county itself feel like the true star. You can pick up a later novel like Boom Town, Weed Killer, or Money Maker and still follow the mystery, but reading from Buck Fever onward gives you the fullest sense of how Marlin's world works, and why the recurring troublemakers are so much fun.
Blanco County rarely stays quiet for long.
Edited by
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