FLAT CRAZY
A Blanco County Mystery
BEN REHDER
St. Martin’s Minotaur
$24.95 (308 pages)
Pub. date: September 7, 2004
ISBN: 0-312-32135-X

Blanco County game warden John Marlin has his hands full.

An unidentified wild beast is on the loose in the Texas hill country. Is it a mythical creature called a chupacabra? The residents of Blanco County sure think so. Things get worse when a hunter’s body turns up with a bizarre neck wound and sleazy TV journalists come looking for a hot scoop. Meanwhile, good ol’ boys Billy Don Craddock and Red O’Brien concoct the perfect scheme: catch the chupacabra and make a bundle. Then, as if things weren’t absurd enough, an Asian dwarf porno star with erectile dysfunction is thrown in the mix. And Viagra isn’t the answer to his problem.

Somehow it all comes together in FLAT CRAZY, the hilarious, but overwritten, third installment in Ben Rehder’s Blanco County mystery series.

The plotting is relentless. Rehder is constantly weaving in and out of the various story lines, never allowing a scene to play out in one take. The jump cuts keep the tension high, but their effect weakens through overuse.

The pace is breakneck. Rehder never fails to keep the story turning, but things slow down when his pen goes into overdrive, bloating the story with insignificant details and a ton of plot lines. Nothing liberal editing couldn’t easily cure, though.

But the charm of Blanco County is in its wacky characters and even wackier occurrences, and FLAT CRAZY has plenty of both. You’ll certainly bust a gut, just as long as you have a juvenile sense of humor and an appreciation for the outrageous. If you don’t crack a smile when you hear the phrase “Asian dwarf porno stars,” look elsewhere.

For those who don’t take their mysteries too seriously, FLAT CRAZY is wonderful, light fun. The only problem: Are you laughing at Texas or with it?