Easy Errors

August 28, 2017
Havill’s 22nd Posadas County mystery (after 2016’s Come Dark) keeps this long-running series fresh by taking a trip back in time to 1986, when laconic Bill Gastner was still undersheriff and working with Robert Torrez, then a rookie. The day after a horrific automobile accident kills three local teens on the interstate, the body of one of their friends, Darlene Spencer, is discovered in a canyon. Although the girl is miles from the scene of the accident and has a bullet hole in her head, Gastner and Torrez are convinced the two incidents are related. But how? And why? And how does all that tragedy tie in with firearm vandalism at a nearby farm? As their own crime scene investigators, Gastner and Torrez painstakingly plod through seemingly disconnected minutiae in pursuit of answers. Havill keeps his relentless hold on readers with bits of wisdom from veteran Gastner, creating a powerful sense of place in his portrayal of the bucolic southwestern New Mexico community.

September 1, 2017
For series fans who didn't think One Perfect Shot (2012), which showed what happened when Estelle Reyes first joined the Posadas County Sheriff's Department, was prequel enough, Havill adds this prequel to a prequel that focuses on Deputy Robert Torrez's first big case way back in 1986.It's a horrible case, especially for Bobby Torrez. Two of the three teenagers killed in a one-car accident on the New Mexico interstate are Bobby's brother and sister, Orlando and Elli. The brand-new driver, their friend Chris Browning, is also killed--a death that knocks his father, ADA Willis Browning, into a fatal aneurysm of his own. Could anything possibly devastate the community more? Yes, it could. The morning after the crash, while Undersheriff Bill Gastner (Come Dark, 2016, etc.) is investigating rancher Herb Torrance's complaint that somebody shot up one of his cattle tanks, he finds the body of Darlene Spencer, the friend of Elli's and girlfriend of Chris' who was supposed to accompany the others on a trip to a 4-H event in Lordsburg, in Bender's Canyon, very recently dead of a head wound apparently received the night before. Why did her friends high-tail it away so fast without taking her with them? Why didn't they go for help? And what to make of the ADA's gun that's gone missing from the car? Some of the connections between the cattle tank shooting, the death of Darlene, and the fatal accident are pretty obvious, but that's not enough for Gastner, who wants to dot every I and cross every T. Fortunately, Bobby Torrez, rising above unimaginable grief, brings him the evidence he needs. Unfortunately, neither the two lawmen working together nor the rest of the personnel in the Posadas County Sheriff's Department succeed in making this case as interesting as it is sad.

COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

November 1, 2017

In this prequel to One Perfect Shot, undersheriff Bill Gastner is first at the scene of a fatal car crash; two of the victims turn out to be the siblings of his new deputy, Robert Torrez, fresh out of the police academy. Were the three teens being pursued, and where is the fourth passenger? Fans and first-time readers will follow the case step by step in this compelling procedural, which leads from the accident to a remote New Mexican canyon and another death.--LH

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from October 15, 2017
It's 1986, and Robert Torrez, fresh out of the police academy, is at the scene of a single-car crash that leaves an SUV in pieces, with three teens dead, two of them Torrez's younger siblings. The next morning Torrez and Undersheriff Bill Gastner check out a report that a water tankhas been shot to pieces and find the body of a girl who was supposed to have been in the SUV. Are the crash and the girl's death connected? Why was she left behind? Why was the SUV going so fast? Were the kids going to get help for the girl? The twenty-second entry in Havill's Posadas County, New Mexico, series is a prequel. In the recent installments, Gastner is mostly retired, and Torrez is the sheriff. Fans of the long-running series will be drawn to the backstory here, which fills in gaps in the stories of both Torrez and Gastner. They will also respond to the qualities that have made this series so appealing over the years: meticulous plotting, multidimensional characters, sharp dialogue, and a vivid sense of place. This is one of the very best entries in a consistently excellent series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)