Perfect Opportunity

March 1, 2024

At the start of this thoroughly captivating detective story, indestructible Bill Gastner, former undersheriff, now resident guru of Posadas County, NM, is celebrating his 87th birthday at a party organized by his prize pupil, Estelle Guzman, who is the current undersheriff of Posadas County. Soon after the birthday party disbands, two men are reported dead in a truck. One stabbed the other; the other shot and killed the stabber. But the shooter wasn't dead yet: an unidentified third party climbed into the cab and drove the knife further into his chest. Not long after, ever curious Bill roams the desert in his motorized wheelchair and discovers that the wooden girders of six railroad bridges have been cut through. When the train next passes, it'll tumble into the arroyo. Both puzzles converge in a unified and satisfactory resolution. Havill's 16th "Posadas County Mystery" (following No Accident) displays all the traits that makes this series a treat: a cast of characters who make up a neighborhood, attention to the details of detective work, and no letup in tension and interest. VERDICT One of the best installments in a consistently superior series of regional mysteries.--David Keymer

Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2024
Neither years of retirement nor his wheelchair can keep former Posadas County Sheriff Bill Gastner from joining forces with Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman to solve a murder and thwart some grand-scale sabotage. A year after Johnny Rabke beat a murder rap for killing Pablo Ramirez during a barroom brawl, and a day after Estelle spotted him chatting with his hand on the shoulder of Deputy Lydia Thompson, Johnny's found stabbed to death in his truck, the corpse of Pablo's brother Arturo shot dead in a ditch nearby. It looks like a clear case of mutually assured destruction until Estelle's husband, Dr. Francis Guzman, the medical examiner, explains the impossibility of the two men having killed each other, since the dying Arturo would never had had the strength to deliver the fatal blow to Johnny. That leaves Estelle and her boss, Sheriff Jackie Taber, searching for suspects who might have wanted to kill both of these mortal enemies. The mystery, set against the background of the NightZone astronomical center, the brainchild of wealthy developer Miles Waddell, takes an even more challenging turn when Bill, relieving himself near a handy support girder for the train that serves NightZone, discovers saw marks on the girder that suggest someone's planning to bring the train crashing down. It's hard to know what to do next, since, as Jackie sagely opines, "A twenty-five-mile [long] crime scene is a challenge." After the unusually detailed and gripping preliminaries, the story settles into a more relaxed and familiar groove, skipping from one suspect to the next with the solicitous care of a photographer at a family reunion. Forget the mystery and enjoy some more quality time with the series regulars in the heart of New Mexico.

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