Flat Crazy
Reviewed by Virginia B. Wood, Fri., Oct. 8, 2004
Flat Crazy
by Ben RehderSt. Martin's Minotaur, 308 pp., $24.95
Austin novelist Ben Rehder is back with the third installment of his Blanco County mystery series, and, once again, he's brought the funny. Rehder's protagonist, level-headed county game warden John Marlin, finds himself at the center of another bizarre series of events. The Houston doctor who disappeared while on a Hill Country trophy hunt turns up dead just after a Mexican day laborer swears he has come face to face with a chupacabra, the horrifying mythical fanged monster of Mexican folklore. Marlin doesn't believe in the chupacabra, of course, but the puncture wound in the doctor's neck has him curious. As Marlin investigates the two seemingly unrelated events, all manner of wackiness ensues. The chupacabra sighting has the locals nervous, sparking some crank calls and a get-rich-quick scheme to catch the animal hatched by the inept redneck poachers Red and Billy Don while drinking at the Friendly Bar. The sleazy tabloid media comes sniffing around the chupacabra story, putting a glaring spotlight on the little town of Johnson City and making Marlin's job harder than ever.
Once he has established the outline of his mystery, Rehder weaves a rich tapestry of recognizable Hill Country characters around it – elderly hardscrabble ranchers, drugged out trust-fund babies, shady hunting guides, aging hippie environmentalists, Hollywood has-beens, and hard-working guys like Marlin – all drawn with humor and humanity. Already a master of the ingenious plot twist, Rehder even introduces a Chinese dwarf pornography troupe into the story and gets a whopping good laugh out of them. There is certainly a formula here – Marlin solves the mystery, gets the girl (an attractive visiting newswoman), and goes home to his faithful dog. Along the way, however, Rehder's well-drawn characters, genuine plot surprises, and ironic social commentary lift the series well above the connect-the-dots level. Flat Crazy is flat-out funny, and I can't wait to see what John Marlin gets into next.
