Come Dark

January 11, 2016
In Havill’s strong 21st mystery set in New Mexico (after 2015’s Blood Sweep), a series of major and minor events tax the meager resources of the Posadas County’s Sheriff’s Department. NightZone—a “mammoth astronomy theme park project,” complete with a radio telescope array and a hotel atop a mesa—is near completion. It’s attracting lots of media attention, as is the girls’ high school volleyball team, which is on a 65-game winning streak. Meanwhile, undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman looks into the disappearance of Stacie Stewart, an auditor with the local electric cooperative, who left her baby and dog in a sweltering car; spray-paint vandalism at both NightZone and the high school; and the fatal shooting of girls’ volleyball coach Clint Scott in the girls’ shower room. Series regulars, including former undersheriff Bill Gastner, interact with a number of intriguing new characters, including Miles Waddell, the owner and sole funder of NightZone. Newcomers will enjoy this entry as much as longtime fans.

March 1, 2016
The Posadas, New Mexico, High School girls' volleyball team is on a lengthy winning streak, attracting statewide attention for itself and coach Clint Scott. One of Scott's former players, Stacie Willis Stewart, now married with a child of her own, abandons her child and dog in a closed car on a hot day and disappears. There were whispers about Coach Scott and Stacie, then and now. Sometime the night before Stacie vanished, someone shot Coach Scott while he was taking a shower after another winning volleyball match. Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman, Sheriff Robert Torrez, and retired sheriff Bill Gastner have their hands full with a murder and a missing person who may or may not be connected to the shooting. The twenty-first Posadas mystery is a compelling mix of dusty small-town ambiance, complex plotting, and an authorial voice imbued with compassionate humanity. Each of the Posadas novels plumbs the collective heartbeat of a community. Those beating hearts belong to characters who range from despicable to saintly, but together they make up one of the most vivid worlds in mystery fiction.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

February 1, 2016
A rash of low-octane mysteries for undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman and her sorely tried colleagues in the Posadas County Sheriff's Department. Since their school days, Deputy Thomas Pasquale has had a thing for Stacie Willis Stewart, who's since married bank president Todd Stewart. So he takes special notice when she locks her Volvo and walks into The Spree one sunny morning, favoring him with a flirtatious wave. Soon distracted by a brand-new car whose battered Illinois license plate doesn't seem to fit its showroom looks, Pasquale fails to notice that Stacie's locked her dog and her infant daughter inside the car and vanished. A retired schoolteacher alerts the EMTs, and Ginger Stewart and the pooch are rescued before they're baked through. But what's become of Stacie? It takes a far more grisly discovery--unstoppable women's volleyball coach Clint Scott, shot four times in the high school locker room--to make Posadas County law enforcement come up with a theory about her disappearance. All this may sound like the material for a meaty stew, but Havill (Blood Sweep, 2015, etc.), after setting the table with every complication from talented teen mural painter Efrin Garcia's vehicular run-in with a deer and a tree to the unauthorized return of Estelle's 15-year-old pianist son, Francisco, from a Missouri conservatory for his grandmother's 100th birthday, connects the dots conscientiously without ever developing either a compelling mystery or a satisfying solution. Fans will shrug and enjoy the family-reunion vibe, which seems increasingly dominant in this long-running series despite all those promises of dark doings.

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