Guilt Trip

Turkey season is in progress, former juvenile delinquent Lucas Burnett's house just exploded, and a Ford Explorer is floating downstream after a gullywasher. It's another ordinary day in Blanco County, Texas...

Game warden John Marlin hopes that Lucas Burnett, a likeable kid, isn't found dead in his burned-down house. But Marlin doesn't have the same warm fuzzy feelings about rancher Vance Scofield, who is missing after his SUV is found in the river. Scofield, a skirt-chasing SOB, is a "high fencer," a rancher who pens trophy bucks behind deer-proof fences which lazy hunters can bag for a fee. To Marlin it's like shooting fish in a barrel. Worse, a range war of sorts has erupted with the low-fence ranchers, and things are turning downright ugly. Of course Marlin still doesn't know about the X-rated pictures a blackmailer took of the state senator in cahoots with the high fencers, the scheme being hatched by two bumbling poachers, or the stolen red Corvette which may be the key to everything. What has caught his attention is the sheriff's department's pretty new deputy...

This is #4 in A Blanco County Mystery.