Steven F. Havill_Bill Gastner Mysteries #1-#3

About this author

Steven F. Havill is an American author of mysteries and westerns.
Havill lives in Raton, New Mexico, with his wife Kathleen. He has written two series of police procedurals set in the fictional Posadas County, New Mexico; along with other works.



Heartshot (A Bill Gastner Mystery #1)

Posadas County, New Mexico, has very few mean streets and no city - slick cop shop. But it has an earnest, elected Sheriff and his aging Undersheriff - William C. Gastner. Pushing sixty, widower Bill has no other life than in law enforcement - and doesn't want one, even if he's being nudged gently toward retirement. Then big time trouble strikes. A car full of teens, running from a stop by Deputy Torrez, goes air borne into a rocky outcrop, killing all five kids and revealing a package of cocaine under the seat. Has someone brought big - time crime to the county. Bill is now dealing with grieving par ents - one of whom starts packing a gun. Then a second explosion of violence fells an undercover cop. Under pressure, the sheriff's department pulls together to make a formidable team. Its weak spot may be Bill whose mind is too tough to crumble but whose body, long mistreated, gradually succumbs to stress. Ignoring all advice - and sense - he pilots the case to a final dramatic, midair confrontation where the fate of the killer - and the cop - will be decided....



Bitter Recoil (A Bill Gastner Mystery #2)

Aging Posadas County Undersheriff Bill Gastner has weathered his quadruple bypass and is taking a rare vacation up in the state's northern mountains. He's escaping meddlesome medical providers who wish he'd reform, but his heart is in staging a reunion with his former detective Estelle Reyes who is working in San Estevan County.
Arriving a day early at the Steamboat Rock Campground, his camping plans are interrupted by sirens. Suddenly, Gastner, Reyes, and her new husband, a doctor, reunite, not over dinner, but over the body of a pregnant young woman.
As first the detectives assume she was a hit-and-run victim. Then the the medical exam reveals she was instead thrown from a moving vehicle after a rape attempt. Gastner's curiosity is piqued -- but he's on vacation. Then four more deaths follow and the still-to-be-reckoned-with lawman steps in to stop the rash of murders....
The authentic flavor of southern New Mexico combines with strong detective work and irresistible characters to produce a second winner for Bill Gastner after Heartshot.
Look for further reprints from Poisoned Pen Press, including Twice Buried.



Twice Buried (A Bill Gastner Mystery #3)

Bill Gastner, Undersheriff of Posadas County, knows that Anna Hocking didn't fall down her fruit cellar stairs by accident. He's also sure that elderly Reuben Fuentes knows nothing about the bodies scattered on his dusty, southern New Mexico ranch. No spring chicken himself, Bill summons his former deputy, Reuben's niece, from Mexico to help clear the old man of suspicion. Eventually this generation-spanning law enforcement team finds a thread tying all the crimes together—a killer with no conscience.

From Publishers Weekly

Responding late to a phone call to the Posados County's sheriff's office, laconic New Mexico Undersheriff Bill Gastner (last seen in Bitter Recoil ) finds Anna Hocking, an elderly retired teacher, dead at the bottom of her basement stairs. Gastner, who observes that there are broken cobwebs in the dusty basement too high to have been disturbed by the diminutive woman, is disinclined to write the death off to natural causes. But his attention is taken up by other matters as a real estate agent is found shot on the property of old-timer Reuben Fuentes, who was recently reported to have started wearing a gun. Although Sheriff Martin Holman thinks Gastner should arrest Fuentes and be done with the case, the perceptive undersheriff isn't convinced the old man shot the realtor. As he digs up more clues, Gastner calls Estelle Reyes-Guzman, his former deputy and Fuentes's grandniece, to ask for her help. Gastner finally links all these crimes and a few others as Havill sensitively explores the area's Mexican-American culture in this increasingly estimable regional series.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.