Blood Sweep

Starred review from February 16, 2015
In Havill’s engrossing 20th mystery set in New Mexico’s Posadas County (after 2013’s NightZone), cop Estelle Reyes-Guzman is so busy that she can’t take the persistent phone calls from her local bank. When she finally does, she gets her first hint that something’s wrong. Estelle’s 99-year-old mother, Teresa Reyes, has requested a cashier’s check for $8,000 drawn from her savings account. Teresa says that a colleague of Estelle’s, a colonel in the Mexican judiciales, requested the money. To add to her worries, Estelle’s younger son tells her that a man claiming to be her uncle called looking for his niece. The story line is satisfyingly complex, but the novel’s great strength is its well-
rendered setting, from the opening description of a silent, motionless antelope to the evocation of a dry riverbed. The concluding note of empathy for the many people trying to cross the border is moving without being heavy-handed.

February 1, 2015
This 20th chapter in the crime annals of Posadas County, New Mexico, brings Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman (One Perfect Shot, 2012, etc.) up against demons past and present.The search for whomever took a shot at Sheriff Robert Torrez from several hundred yards away and missed him by 10 inches ends with the discovery of one Miguel A. Quesada, whose Jeep is carrying a rifle that looks like the perfect candidate for the weapon. But Quesada's in no position to clear up the mystery since he's been shot to death himself. Nor is Estelle in a much better position; since she found her much-loved old colleague, retired Sheriff Bill Gastner, crouching helpless on the cement floor of his own garage with a broken hip, she's devoted herself to getting him swift and comprehensive care, despite her department's needs and crusty Gastner's brusque demands to leave him alone. Even getting Gastner to a hospital doesn't free up Estelle, because a series of apparently unrelated phone warnings alerts her to possible extortion and kidnapping threats against her son, Francisco, who's playing a concert in Mexico with an equally gifted friend from Missouri's Leister Academy. The threats against Francisco eventually bring Estelle face to face with enigmatic Benedicte Mazon, who claims to be her long-lost uncle. Is it possible that this aging jailbird, who manages to escape from police custody, could hold the key to both the gaps in Estelle's knowledge of her own early years and the shooting of Bobby Torrez? The family-secrets angle makes this leisurely episode most likely to appeal to fans less invested in the nominal mystery than in the long narrative arc supplied by the extended family of Posadas County, in which everyone seems to be related to everyone else by blood or spirit.

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April 1, 2015
Posadas County Sheriff Bobby Torrez is antelope hunting when a shot blows apart his telescopic sight. Was someone trying to kill him or just delivering a message? Meanwhile, Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman's son, a 15-year-old pianist, is in Mazatalan, Mexico, for a concert. Crime is escalating in the once-picturesque city, so Estelle nears panic when her 90-year-old mother receives an anonymous call asking for $8,000. The tension escalates again when a body is found in a car, the circumstances suggesting that the victim knew his killer. There's also some preliminary evidence the dead man may have been the shooter who took out Torrez' lens. Are any of the incidents related? Havill, in his twentieth Posadas County mystery, will keep readers guessing. He'll also have longtime readers holding their collective breath to learn the fate of the series' original protagonist, Bill Gastner, now 76, who shatters a hip in a fall. The Posadas County mysteries are carefully plotted, subtly written, and populated by an endearing, evolving cast of characters. A worthy entry in a fine series that appeals equally to procedural fans and to those who favor mysteries with a small-town setting.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)