Blood Sweep by Steven F. Havill (Posadas County Mystery, Book 8) from Books In Motion.com

by Steven F. Havill

Product Description 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 Mexicos crime-ridden Mazatlan for a concert series where he may be the target for scam artists and kidnappers. Estelles worries go from bad to worse when her unclea man she didn't know existedsurfaces in an attempt to mend family ties and leaves a trail of corpses in his wake. Estelles attempts to glean family historythe story of her childhood in Tres Santos over the borderfrom 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 divein 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. Review 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. --Publishers Weekly, starred reviewThis 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 Mazón, 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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