"Gone the Next" by Ben Rehder

Roy Ballard is an insurance fraud videographer / investigator in Austin, Texas. He’s funny, flippant, cynical, and carries some criminal baggage of his own. Years back, he was arrested for assault (punching his old boss out for disrespectful comments about a woman). Right at the end of his probation, he was stopped for DWI, and the policeman discovered unprescribed pills in the car. So, Ballard has a record. 

His usual jobs are investigating people who file fraudulent claims for workman’s compensation. Like the ones who claim a back injury but can hoist 80-pound bags of cement at Home Depot. He has sufficient work to support himself and then some. 

He’s tracking and watching a restaurant dishwasher who supposedly hurt his wrist when he sees something, or someone, who shouldn’t be in the home. It’s a little girl, and Ballard is convinced she’s the little who was abducted less than a week ago. The case suddenly becomes personal; Ballard’s own daughter was abducted from the back seat of his car years before. 

The police investigating the kidnapping write Ballard off because of his own past. He gets help from a good friend, Mia the bartender, whom he persuades to becomes a business partner in his fraud investigations. And Jessica, a server at the restaurant where the suspect works, helps, too. 

Ben Rehder

Gone the Next is the first entry in the seven Roy Ballard mysteries by Ben Rehder, and it’s a gradually gripping mystery punctuated by Ballard’s wisecracks and general cynicism. 

In addition to the Roy Ballard stories, Redhder has also written 13 novels in the Blanco County series, one of which, Buck Fever, was a finalist for the Edgar Awards of the Mystery Writers of America. He’s also written two standalone novels, The Chicken Hanger and The Driving Lesson. 

Gone the Next is a story that also provides factual background on child abductions and kidnappings. And Rehder does a great job of keeping the reader guessing about what happened to Ballard’s own child as well as the case he’s investigating.