BAG LIMIT (Posadas County Mysteries #9) (audiobook) by Steven F. Havill

Published in 2001 by Books In Motion.
Read by Rusty Nelson.
Duration: 11 hours, 59 minutes.
Unabridged.

Synopsis:

Sheriff Bill Gastner is coming to the end of his appointed term as Sheriff of Posadas County - a border county in southern New Mexico. Bill has been in the department in one form of another for 31 years and he is looking forward to a well-deserved retirement with no real plans for how to fill his days.

Bill Gastner has got a wild last few days as Sheriff  - he has a drunken teen driver with a fake driver's license issue by the department of motor vehicles, two damaged police cars, two other teens in the hospital, and more.

My Review:

I am a big fan of this series. I love old Bill Gastner - he has insomnia, happily eats the same pepper-filled burrito at the same restaurant 2 or even 3 meals per day, and relies on experience more than the speed an agility of younger officers.

But, this book was padded with a whole lot of nothing. We meet Gastner's son and grandson who are completely incidental to the mystery in the story. We learn about how Gastner's high school-aged grandson is a completely amazing young man who can cook, befriend little kids, enjoy watching old Westerns and even speak Spanish! However, if you took this remarkable young man out of the story it would be 2 hours shorter and nothing would change in the main plot. 

I estimate that the book was about 50% padding and that made a story that started out so strong at the beginning and ended with a lot of twists and turns just a tedious muddle in the middle. 

I rate this book a generous 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: BAG LIMIT (Posadas County Mysteries #9) (audiobook) by Steven F. Havill.

OUT of SEASON (Posadas County Mysteries #7) (audiobook) by Steven F. Havill

 

Published in 2008 by Books In Motion.

Originally published in 1999.
Read by Rusty Nelson.
Duration: 8 hours, 56 minutes.
Unabridged.

In Out of Season things are not going well for Undersheriff Bill Gastner, the second in command of the Posadas County Sheriff Department in southern New Mexico. He is planning to retire in a few months and the person he had hoped he would take over for him is moving out of state. He found out another officer has applied to a much larger department where there are more opportunities. 

Things get even worse, though. A woman that most would consider more than a little mentally off balance calls the department and says that she has seen a struggling small plane disappear behind a mesa near her home. She says that it must have crashed. When a deputy checks it out, he spots wreckage. When they finally get close they find two bodies - and one of them is the Sheriff, a man who notoriously hates to ride in planes.

When Gastner and the department start to dig into what happened, they find more than they ever bargained for...

Rusty Nelson has read most if not all of the audiobooks in this series. I have read or listened to most of them. His folksy tone of voice goes well with Bill Gastner. Since the book is told from Gastner's point of view, that works out well.

Gastner continues to be a lovable grump. His age-related physical limitations encourage him use his head rather than charge blindly into a situation. He continues his insomniac ways while he guzzles coffee and takes any chance to sit down at the Don Juan Restaurant and eat a plateful of spicy burritos.

My only problem with the book is the character of Estelle Reyes-Guzman. She is always perfect. She is pretty, married to a fantastic guy, has a great family, figures out the case before anyone else, drives better than anyone else and is unfailingly polite. Don't get me wrong - I'd love it if she were a cop in my town, but she is a boring character.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: OUT of SEASON (Posadas County Mysteries #7) (audiobook) by Steven F. Havill.

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PRIVILEGED to KILL (Bill Gastner Mystery #5) (audiobook) by Steven F. Havill

Published by Books in Motion in 2008.
Read by Rusty Nelson.
Duration: 8 hours, 57 minutes.
Unabridged.

Undersheriff Bill Gastner returns in Privileged to Kill, another mystery set in a sleepy New Mexico county on the Mexican border set in the mid-1990's. However, in this story, Posadas County is anything but sleepy.

To be fair, the story starts out sleepy enough with Bill Gastner feeling his age and talking with a a 51 year-old stranded bicyclist with a busted tire that he picks up on the side of the road just for the heck of it and totes him, his bike and all of his equipment into town. Bill and the bicyclist become friendly and the bicyclist heads off to make camp somewhere and then move on the next morning after he gets his tire fixed.

But, things pick up quickly when Gastner gets a phone call in the middle of the night. A freshman girl has been found dead under the bleachers at the high school football field and the bicycle rider was camped nearby and he has been arrested. But, that's not the end of it...

The charm of this series is Bill Gastner's slow pace (he is the oldest character in the book) and the fact that he uses experience and his extensive knowledge of Posadas County to figure things out. But, he also uses his mouth. For a self-professed hermit, he is talks to everyone and listens. This can make the book slow-paced, but that makes sense for a cop looking at retirement. For me, this book series is the literary version of comfort food. I know the characters, the stories move to a slow-but-steady pace and the mysteries are pretty good.

The author, Steven F. Havill

Rusty Nelson read the book and he really does a very solid job with the accents. I think he gets Bill Gastner very well. As normal, there is a bit of Spanish in the book and that is Nelson's weakness. I am not sure why no one call help him with his Spanish, but if you don't know any Spanish it won't bug you either way.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5 and it can be found on Amazon.com here: PRIVILEGED to KILL (Bill Gastner Mystery #5) by Steven F. Havill.

BLOOD SWEEP (Posadas County Mystery Book 8) by Steven F. Havill

A Review of the Audiobook

Published by Books in Motion in 2015
Read by Beth Richmond
Duration: 11 hours, 40 minutes
Unabridged

Blood Sweep is my eleventh Posadas County/Bill Gastner mystery. I have been with Bill Gastner when he was on patrol, when he was being lowered into a mine to find a kidnapper, when he was fighting a man in a little plane and through a whole lot of extra-spicy burritos.

Sadly, Bill is a minor character in this book. I understand why - when the series started out he was already old for a sheriff. Now, he's retired and really can't go out and fight bad guys so much.

Estelle Reyes-Guzman and Bob Torres carry the load in this book. I enjoyed the Torres story line, but found the Reyes-Guzman story line to be poorly paced and exceptionally wordy (never a problem with Torres since he famously says as little as possible). The Reyes-Guzman story line features a former resident of a Mexican border town that has spent most of his adult life in prison. This character speaks English like a Shakespearean actor, using tons of fancy words like "beseech" in everyday conversation. No one uses "beseech" in everyday conversation, especially not people who speak English as their second language and must have learned it in a Mexican prison. The whole plot revolves around this character and he is simply not believable as he is presented. Plus, he talks waaay tooo much.

So, this ties my lowest score for a Posadas County mystery. Thank goodness, most of them are much better than this one. I will be visiting Posadas County again.

Beth Richmond read Blood Sweep and did a solid job with most of the characters. Two of her Spanish-speaking characters sounded so much alike that it was difficult to follow who was speaking when they spoke to one another.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Blood Sweep by Steven F. Havill.

BITTER RECOIL (Posadas County Mysteries) (audiobook) by Steven F. Havill

Published by Books in Motion
Read by Rusty Nelson
Duration: 6 hours, 55 minutes
Unabridged

Sixty-two year old Undersheriff Bill Gastner is recovering from heart surgery in Bitter Recoil. He has been told to get out and exercise more and to get away from work. You see, Gastner has a lot of bad habits when he works. He doesn't sleep, he gets involved in things that get him hurt and he eats large, spicy burritos.

So, Bill decides to go on a camping trip and visit a former colleague, Estelle Reyes-Guzman, who has taken a job in the sheriff department of a different county in New Mexico - up in the mountains. But, while he is trying to sleep in a campground he hears sirens and sees lights so he decides to go check it out.

Soon enough, Bill is working with Reyes-Guzman and investigating a murder, looking into a smooth-talking hippie-type who quotes the Bible and brandishes a gun and eventually ends up questioning a priest.

Heck of a vacation, huh?

This was an interesting change of geography for the Posadas County Mystery series - away from the mostly flat deserts of the border area and into the desert mountains. Rusty Nelson's reading of the book was pretty good, except for any time he has to read Spanish. 


I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: Bitter Recoil by Steven F. Havill.

BEFORE SHE DIES (Bill Gastner #4) (Posadas County Mysteries) (audiobook) by Steven F. Havill

Originally Published in 1996.

Audio edition published by Books in Motion in 2002.
Read by Rusty Nelson
Duration: 9 hours, 17 minutes
Unabridged

Posadas County New Mexico Undersheriff Bill Gastner is having a bad night. He almost gets shot substituting as the policeman on duty at the local high school basketball game, the suspect dies in custody and then someone shoots and kills a deputy sheriff and nearly kills a reporter on the side of the road with a shotgun.

The investigation begins in earnest following the slimmest of leads with Gastner and company looking for a killer before the only known witnesses dies and looking for another missing witness before the killer strikes again...

The audiobook of Before She Dies starts out like a rocket but the second act gets bogged down in the minutiae of a police procedural. The third act picks up though and the book ends on a strong note.

The reading by Rusty Nelson was solid except when he tries to read in Spanish. The author's Spanish was passable - if I were the sheriff of Posadas County and my anglo detectives were this fluent I would be pleased. It was good enough.

But - these were supposed to be conversations between native speakers of Spanish, one of whom grew up in Mexico. There's no way that these conversations would be confused for authentic Spanish speaker conversations and Rusty Nelson's brave attempt to speak Spanish was...well, it was interesting. But, most people won't know the difference either way, so don't let this dissuade you from listening.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: Before She Dies by Steven F. Havill.

ONE PERFECT SHOT: A Bill Gastner Mystery (audiobook) by Steven F. Havill

When Bill met Estelle...

Published in 2012 by Blackstone Audio
Read by Ray Porter
Duration: 10 hours, 31 minutes
Unabridged

In this prequel to the series, Bill Gastner is investigating the death of a road grader operator. He is found dead in the cab of the grader with a bullet in his brain, having been shot by a single shot straight through the front windshield. There are no witnesses so Bill starts to dig through the victim's past to find out if there are any potential enemies that might have wanted to hurt him.

As he starts to investigate the sheriff department's new hire, Estelle Reyes, a rookie straight out of college, goes along for the ride while Gastner tries to familiarize her with the department's procedures. And, of course, the more they dig the more they find secrets that most people would just prefer stay buried...

One Perfect Shot is a solid mystery - I sort of had it figured out about 2/3 of the way through but for all of the wrong reasons. But, the most interesting thing is the fact that we get to meet Estelle Reyes for the first time. The rich detail of the local community of Posadas County, New Mexico is explored in detail and I think that this only makes the story better.

I enjoyed it thoroughly.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: One Perfect Shot by Steven F. Havill.

PROLONGED EXPOSURE (Undersheriff Bill Gastner #6) (audiobook) by Steven F. Havill

Originally published in 1998.
Published in 2008 by Books in Motion. 
Read by Rusty Nelson.
Duration: 9 hours, 46 minutes.
Unabridged.

I have been reading the Bill Gastner series off and on again for nearly 10 years. This is one of those series that never really took off and became bestsellers, but it certainly should have. If you enjoy Tony Hillerman's Leaphorn and Chee novels then you should give this series a try.

Prolonged Exposure is book #6 in a series that depends on the reader having some at least some prior knowledge of the characters. I have read some of the earlier books and some of the later books so that I wasn't lost when it came to the non-mystery part of the story.

Bill Gastner is a cranky old undersheriff, which is an office in New Mexico. Basically, the sheriff of a county is an elected position and is designed to be held by someone who is not a member of law enforcement. An undersheriff is a professional who works with the sheriff and makes sure that things operate they way they are supposed to. He works in a fictional county along the border with Mexico.

In this novel there are two main story lines. The first one involves Bill Gastner's property. While he was out of state recovering from a surgery with his daughter his elderly neighbor dug a marked grave for his wife and buried her on the edge of Gastner's land. At first, he is tolerant and looks upon it sympathetically but once he starts to look into it, it starts to look weird, even by the standards of his small town.

The second is the story of a three year old boy who goes missing during a family camping trip. A manhunt ensues and the whole department starts to become suspicious that things may not be quite what they seem.

Rusty Nelson's reading of this audiobook was excellent. He created different voices for every character and even managed a series of pretty decent Mexican accents.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: Prolonged Exposure by Steven F. Havill.

RED, GREEN, or MURDER (Posadas County #7) (Posadas County Mysteries Book 10) by Steven F. Havill

I just love Bill Gastner

Published in 2009 by Poison Pen Press

This series actually extends over the careers of two law officers who hold a position called Undersheriff in the fictional Posadas County, New Mexico. An undersheriff is the person right below the elected position of Sheriff and is appointed by the Sheriff. Generally, the Undersheriff would be the expert in the law that is there to advise the elected Sheriff. The first half of the series covers Undersheriff Bill Gastner, an experienced law officer. Bill would laugh at that at just say that he is old. Bill is sort of grumpy, a little creeky in the knees, moves slowly but makes up for it with a lot of experience and really knowing the people of Posadas County, New Mexico.  He is especially good at thinking while eating very spicy burritos at all hours of the day or night.

The second half of the series covers the career of Undersheriff Estelle Guzman. She is quite talented and, for me, simply not as interesting as Bill. She is admirable and I would hire her to be my Undersheriff because she really knows what she is doing but...she is really boring.

Unfortunately, Red, Green, or Murder is Bill Gastner's last hurrah as a main character. In this story Bill is no longer the Undersheriff. Instead, he is a state livestock inspector. But, he still gets caught up in the events of the book. In it, everything that makes you love Bill is on display - his knowledge and connections, his bravery and his late night ruminating. His beloved burritos are even part of a mystery.

There are actually two mysteries in this story. One involves the mysterious death of an old friend of Bill. They shared a love of spicy burritos and Bill's elderly friend was too frail to go out to the restaurant for lunch. But, the restaurant was glad to deliver burritos to a couple of long-time customers.

Bill had to cancel due to an incident while he was attending to his duties as livestock inspector. Sadly, his friend died while eating that meal. But, there are strange signs that lead Bill and Undersheriff Estelle Guzman to suspect that this was no accident.

Meanwhile, while Bill is helping with the family of his friend, the cattle that he just inspected are all over the highway and no one can find the young ranch hand that delivered them or the truck and trailer. Did he run off or was he carjacked? And, is there a connection between Bill's deceased friend and the rancher with the missing truck and trailer?

Neither of these mysteries is earth-shaking but I loved this story because I just love Bill Gastner. 

The book can be found on Amazon here: 
Red, Green, or Murder

I rate this novel 5 stars out of 5.

SCAVENGERS (Posadas County Mysteries #11) by Steven F. Havill

Posadas County Mysteries Are Just Not As Good Without Bill Gastner

First published in 2002.

Synopsis: The Posadas County Sheriff's office is short-handed when it gets word that a pilot spotted a body that has been shot in the middle-of-nowhere. Literally, in the middle-of-nowhere - not near a road, a train track, a business or anything. The bullets were fired just in hearing range of a gravel pit but no one thinks twice about bullets being fired in the New Mexico countryside because people hunt or shoot at varmints on a regular basis.

So, new Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman and her team start to dig into what they have - a body in the desert and no other clues. Soon enough, they discover more, including a local connection to what may be an international crime spree (although, it's not hard to be international so close to such a porous border). With the addition of the sudden death of a suspected animal trafficker in a fiery explosion, the new Undersheriff has her hands full.

This book marks a critical point in the Posadas County Mysteries series. Up to this point the mysteries feature Bill Gastner, an old county undersheriff (in New Mexico, the undersheriff is the main advisor to the elected sheriff - usually the professional who makes sure the policies of the elected sheriff, who may not necessarily be a professional are enacted in a proper way).

Gastner was getting too old to be a credible character - extensive experience, lots of knowledge and talent are great things to have but it just becomes hard for a set of almost 80-year-old knees to climb up and down buttes and ladders and impossible to imagine Gastner chasing down anyone unless it is in a nursing home. In fact, you can just about guarantee that Bill Gastner would have died in a pivotal moment in this story involving a late night run in the desert and a hike in and out of a wash.

A southern New Mexico landscape.
Photo by NMTrey.

That is just too bad because I loved reading about cranky old Bill and his love for super-spicy burritos for breakfast and his insomnia that preceded all kinds of late night inspiration when solving mysteries. I sympathized with his creaky knees and admired his determination. Gastner does make a couple of short appearances in this book.

Gastner is replaced by Estelle Reyes-Guzman. She has been in and out of the series (mostly in) from the beginning and would be a remarkably good choice for the sheriff to pick to be the new undersheriff. She is capable, has the respect of the department, she is a woman (to counterbalance the male sheriff), she speaks Spanish, she has strong connections with the Mexican community directly across the border. 

But, she is also very boring. I would love to have her be the lead investigator in any real-world case, but I wouldn't want to read about the boring details. They would be boring details because she is an inherently boring character. She should always stay as a support character. 

I had a hard time getting into this book. I liked the set up but then the middle half of the book just dragged. The secondary mystery with the burros was ultimately a let-down. The primary mystery ended with a lot of excitement but it just took too long to get there. 

I love the Gastner mysteries but I may not look into any more of the Reyes-Guzman stories.

On a positive note, the Spanish in the book is excellent (I am a Spanish teacher). Most authors with books set in Mexico try to include some Spanish to give it some authenticity and most of them fail miserably with actually producing authentic Spanish. On the negative side, though, there are times when you probably could not follow the conversation unless you could understand the Spanish.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Scavengers: A Posadas County Mystery (Posadas County Mysteries)

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5.
Reviewed on December 30, 2014.

HEARTSHOT (Bill Gastner #1) (Posadas County Mysteries #1) by Steven F. Havill

Originally published in 1991.

Bill Gastner is the cantankerous, ornery old Undersheriff of Posadas County in southern New Mexico. An undersheriff is the person right below the elected position of Sheriff and is appointed by the Sheriff. In the case of fictional Posadas County, the Sheriff is a former used car salesman who is a heck of a businessman but does not know much about law enforcement. So, Bill is literally the old hand that knows his way around the law and the county. Also, he is afraid that the Sheriff might drop him because he's in his sixties and generally considered to be an old grump.

Gastner is a widower and an insomniac who will work 20 hours a day if he can. Why not? His kids are grown up and out of the house, he has no love life and he prefers his own company to just about anyone else's.

A Southern New Mexico Landscape.
Photo by NMTrey.

One night while out on one of his volunteer patrols he listens to radio talk about a car filled with teenagers. A police officer was going to pull them over for speeding but the driver just gives it the gas and tries to flee. But, the car flies off of the road and kills everyone inside. While sorting through the wreckage, a large package of drugs is found inside.

The Sheriff's Department cannot figure out if this is some sort of a fluke, if one of the kids was trafficking in drugs or if there's something else going on. A deputy from another county with a very young face is brought in to pose as Gastner's juvenile delinquent grandson and soon things go downhill very fast and Gastner is struggling with both a deadly health problem and a murderer...

This is the fourth book that I have read in this series and I have to admit that I really just love the series. The mysteries are just so-so (I figured this one out about halfway through) but the character development is unbelievably strong. It feels like Gastner is a real person and for a few hours the reader gets to ride along with him and experience a different life.

I highly recommend this series.

You can start this series by going to Amazon.com and getting book #1:   HEARTSHOT (Bill Gastner #1) (Posadas County Mysteries #1) by Steven F. Havill.

5 stars out of 5.
Reviewed on November 26, 2014

Dead Weight (Bill Gastner #8) (Posadas County #8) by Steven Havill

Wonderful

Published in 2000.

I absolutely love the Bill Gastner series. I have read a few unsatisfying novels lately and Dead Weight was a real joy.

Gastner is the nearly 70-year-old insomniac sheriff of a small town in New Mexico. He consumes great quantities of coffee and very spicy Mexican food (even for breakfast!) while he juggles a homicide investigation, a mysterious accusation against one of his officers and a landlord/renter dispute. Small town politics and good police work don't necessarily go hand-in-hand, but Gastner makes it work anyway.

Havill's characters remind me very much of those of fellow New Mexican author Tony Hillerman. For me, this is very high praise since I absolutely love the Leaphorn/Chee novels. If Havill and Hillerman are par for the course in the world of New Mexican authors than I am going to looking for more of them. Truly a delightful read.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Dead Weight by Steven Havill

Reviewed on October 18, 2006.

Out of Season: An Undersheriff Bill Gastner Mystery (#7) by Steven F. Havill

Well depicted characters make this one a winner!

Published in 1999.

The mystery is not all that mysterious. No international criminal ring threatens. National Security and the fate of the free world do not depend on what happens in Posadas County, New Mexico and its tired and ready to retire Undersheriff Bill Gastner. That, of course, is the charm and strength of Out of Season.

Posadas County, New Mexico's small sheriff's department suffers the loss of its well-intentioned but inexperienced Sheriff in a plane accident - except it looks like it was not an accident after all - the pilot was shot before he crashed. Undersheriff Gastner looks into the private investigation that the Sheriff was looking into and finds that his inexperienced boss may have had good instincts after all.

First, let me praise what Havill does best in this book - character development. Gastner is a tired old horse who is ready to go out to pasture but when duty calls the value of his years of experience (more than anything else) move Federal, state and local authorities towards finding out who has killed Sheriff Martin Holmann. He is a restraining hand on the young pups, a prod to the confused, and a sounding board to the others.

This is my first Havill book. You do not have to start the series at the beginning and I give this one 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Out of Season: An Undersheriff Bill Gastner Mystery

Reviewed on May 23, 2006.

Twice Buried (Bill Gastner #3) (Posadas county #3) by Steven Havill

Not up to the standards of later Gastner mysteries

Originally published in 1994.

Having read several of the later Undersheriff Bill Gastner mysteries I found myself a little torn with Twice Buried.

I love the character of Bill Gastner. The characters in this series are particularly well-developed and realistic. The procedures in this book are thorough and seemingly well-depicted (I'm not a police officer, but it seemed pretty kosher to me) except for one very large hole in the way the investigation developed - a whole line of investigation was ignored that seemed obvious to me. This hurt the integrity of the book in my eyes, but I still give it 4 stars.

If you are a fan of Tony Hillerman's Navajo Tribal Police books you should check out this series.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Twice Buried.

Reviewed on December 29, 2008.