Scavengers

September 9, 2002
In his 10th entertaining outing (after last year's Bag Limit), Havill's laconic hero, Bill Gastner, after retiring as sheriff of Posadas County (N.Mex.), has become the state livestock inspector, while the mother of his godchildren, Estelle Reyes-Guzman, has assumed the post of undersheriff for the county. The new sheriff, Bob Torrez, has picked a fine time to attend a training conference. When a student pilot spots a corpse on the desert floor, Estelle steps into the beginning of a crime spree that will soon cover both sides of the nearby Mexican border. When a second body turns up and a suspicious fire takes a third life, Torrez cuts his trip short and returns to assist his investigators. Spanish text dots the pages, lending the flavor of old Mexico to the author's finely woven plot. When Estelle requests information from Mexico's police force, Captain Tomás Naranjo offers not only his assistance but news of a south-of-the-border homicide that may be connected to Posadas County's latest victims. The answers begin to take shape with the removal of two small clues from a pickup caught sneaking away from the taped-off desert crime scene. Skilled investigation, happenstance and cooperation mesh through every phase of the puzzle, ushering the reader along to one satisfying conclusion.