Blood Sweep: A Posadas County Mystery

By Steven F. Havill

Gifted fifteen-year-old Francisco Guzman has become an internationally renowned concert pianist, touring the world under the auspices of his music conservatory. That gives his mother, Posadas County Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman, plenty of reason to worry--and that's magnified when she learns that he's in Mexico’s crime-ridden Mazatlan for a concert series where he may be the target for scam artists and kidnappers.
Estelle’s worries go from bad to worse when her uncle—a man she didn't know existed—surfaces in an attempt to mend family ties and leaves a trail of corpses in his wake. Estelle’s attempts to glean family history—the story of her childhood in Tres Santos over the border—from her adopted mother, a woman now in her nineties, go nowhere. Meanwhile, escalating events put Sheriff Bobby Torrez in jeopardy, as they do newly wealthy rancher Miles Waddell and his pet project, the multi-million dollar theme park, NightZone, set high on a county mesa.
Just when his sage advice might be most useful, former sheriff and family friend Bill Gastner takes a dive—in the shadows of his own garage. Now his far-flung family is added to the mix of people and events astir in the boot heel of New Mexico.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
• Release date: Apr 7, 2015
• ISBN: 9781464203909

Reviews for Blood Sweep

[cathyskye · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is another sterling entry in Steven F. Havill's Posadas County mystery series. The author has put so much life into this fictional county in southwestern New Mexico that you'd swear it was real-- and if it were, I'd want to go for a visit.Out of Season covers a lot of ground. It shows us ranchers trying to survive when money is every bit as scarce as water but those bills still have to be paid. It shows us a tiny sheriff's department trying to subsist on a shoestring budget at a time when employees are getting good job offers from law enforcement agencies with a lot more money-- and now the death of the sheriff is going to have a profound impact on everyone there. Of course, life would not be complete without a bit of meddling from members of the City Council. The setting isn't the only strength to this series. The cast of characters is superb. If characterization means a lot to you when you read mysteries then you have to get your hands on this Posadas County series. These characters are most definitely not static. They grow, they change, they have health problems, they get married, they move... everything you and I do, well, they do it, too. When you read these books, you're making friends. (So what if they're fictional?)The only quibble I have with Out of Season is that the story relied too much on the technical aspects and not enough on the characters, but that's not about to stop me from reading the next installment. Bring it on!

[condorena · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Havill never repeats himself, goes straight ahead from murder to resolution, this i so refreshing.