Bitter Recoil by Steven Havill

Protagonists: Bill Gastner and Estelle Reyes-Guzman
Setting: Northern New Mexico
Rating: 3.7

In this second book of the series, Gastner, just out of bypass surgery, drives across the state to visit former deputy Guzman, now newly married. But he soon finds himself helping her on a nonstop 24-hour case: first, a young pregnant woman is killed, seemingly thrown from a moving car. Then, young men are being killed, possibly the ones who were in the pickup truck with the girl. The bad guy becomes obvious pretty quickly, but Havill still maintains our interest with some interesting twists and the growing characters of Gastner and Guzman, and the book moves quickly to its resolution.

Heartshot by Steven F. Havill

Heartshot by Steven F. Havill (first in the series)
Protagonist: Undersheriff Bill Gastner
Setting: Posadas County, New Mexico
Rating: 3.7
This series is refreshing in that it features overweight, cigarette-puffing, retirement-age undersheriff Bill Gastner (the sheriff is mostly a political job; the undersheriff does all the work in fictional Posadas County) and a young Latina detective, Estelle Reyes, as his sidekick. In this debut, the sheriff’s office finds itself dealing with a major drug problem, one that has killed several teens. Gastner ends up in the hospital – not because he’s shot at, stabbed or otherwise hurt in the line of work. It’s his heart. His bad heart becomes key at another pivotal point later on – you can see it coming, but the author pulls it out with a nice scene. This book had its faults – one being that the bad guy is easy to spot, early on. Still, it’s a series I’ll continue.