"Former Posadas County Sheriff Bill Gastner, now a New Mexico Livestock Inspector, is enjoying a day on Herb Torrance's ranch--soaking in the sun as he counts a small herd of cattle and thinking about an upcoming lunch with an old friend back in town. But a light breeze stirs dust, a horse spooks, and Bil finds himself ferrying a broken cowpuncher in the back of his SUV, headed out to meet an ambulance. Moments later, Bill's day goes from bad to...

"Parked high on a side road on the flank of the second highest peak in the San Cristobal Mountains, peacefully surveying what soon would no longer be his responsibility as a sheriff, almost-seventy Bill Gastner could think that the night would be without incident."--Jacket.

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 airborne into a rocky outcrop, killing all...

In New Mexico, Undersheriff Bill Gastner investigates the murder of a high school girl. Suspicion centers on a cyclist, until someone tries to run him down, whereupon Gastner realizes the murderer drives a car. By the author of Before She Dies.

When Posadas Register reporter Linda Real barely survives her nighttime patrol with one of Undersherrif Bill Gastner's deputies who is killed by a more accurate shotgun blast than the one that ruins her face, Bill gets angry. Teamed with his intuitive, observant detective Estelle Reyes-Guzman and her usual sharp eye for physical evidence, Bill implicates Tammy Woodruff, the thrill-seeking daughter of the local Republican County Chairman, in the brutal...

"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,...

"Good cops have no use for coincidence. When a driver slams his pickup truck-twice-into a tandem bike being ridden by Carlos Guzman and his fiancée, Tasha, in Briones, California, it's more than a simple hit-and-run; the driver clearly intended to harm them. Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman gets the call with the news of her son's accident and wastes no time racing to his side. She is greeted by Police Captain Eddie Mitchell, formerly of Posadas...