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Have you read Steven Havill yet like I've been telling you to? Why not? Sheesh, I do and do and do for you. Sorry, who was that? Anyway, the immensely talented Steven F Havill offers the 12th in his Posadas County series. Posadas is a fictitious New Mexico county where for years, Undersheriff Bill Gastner kept the peace. Now that Gastner's retired, his place has been ably taken by his good friend, undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Gutman. In this dry, flat and spread-out area of the American southwest, it seems that often, everyone knows everyone else. But the lives aren't dull or small town or parochial; there are real-life concerns and real people. The ease with which Havill writes makes all things interesting, from the politics of financing a town to the everyday life of a cop and her family. Havill's strength -- okay, one of them -- is that his characters are fair and just. They treat everyone with the courtesy of assuming they're not stupid; that they understand the consequences of their actions. Whether dealing with someone of relatively high status in the area, or a child, both Bill and Estelle always show compassion and an understanding of how life goes. Havill's also able to show enough of his lead characters' personal lives while telling the crime stories that form the backbone of the series. In CONVENIENT DISPOSAL, Estelle finds out that her young son Francisco, only in first grade, has a passion for music. Francisco's been sneaking off at lunch to play the piano, and he's not just fooling around making noise, he's interested. Estelle and her husband, who's a doctor, didn't exactly see this coming and it's a truly intriguing sideline to the book. As is the creepiness of the new trendy school weapon, a sharpened steel hat pin; something that can be hidden in the seam of a student's jeans. Deena is found with a hatpin and is suspended; a very short time later, the girl she was angry at, Carmen Acosta, is found gruesomely attacked, a hatpin through her ear, and beaten. It's pretty clear Deena didn't do this but someone was out probably to murder Carmen. Further complicating the story is the disappearance of the Acostas' next door neighbor, County Manager Kevin.Ziegler. Kevin's vehicles are at the house, but no one knows where he is. He's disappeared, and whether suspect or witness, Estelle and the sheriff's department need to find him. The slow thorough progress of the investigation and the story work extremely well, as always. There are enough details for the fans of forensics and enough just flat out good details for the story to keep the reader interested. I hope this series continues for at least another dozen books. It's uniformly excellent with richly-written characters, whom you can get to know. I'd still like to see a little more of Bill Gastner, though. I honestly have felt like he's become a friend through the years and I want to know how he's doing.
Reviewed by Andi Shechter, March 2005
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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