A police procedural with fake ids, cattle rustling, murder, a sheriff's election, and Bill Gastner's retirement party.
An expanding cast of characters with fast-flowing dialogue and action that kept me reading. ( )

It's a peaceful night, and Sheriff Bill Gastner has his police car parked up in the San Cristobal Mountains, looking out over the valley at what soon would no longer be his responsibility as sheriff. He's looking forward to the election and handing over his sheriff's badge to his successor, but his quiet contemplation is shattered when his car is T-boned by a carload of drunken teenagers.

Without a thought to his friends, the driver of the car runs and disappears into the woods. But it doesn't matter; Gastner knows both the young driver and his family. For some reason, the boy seems much too upset about being arrested, and on the way to the jail, he makes a desperate attempt to escape which leads to his being hit and killed by an oncoming truck.

Gastner has his work cut out for him in learning what's behind this tragic overreaction. Not only is it just a couple of days away from the election and his retirement, but he's also got houseguests: his former deputy, her surgeon husband, and their two hyperactive little boys.

~

As much as I enjoy this series, you'd think I'd plow right through it, but I'm not. Instead, I'm ambling through it, taking my own sweet time, knowing that Havill's Posadas County series is one I can rely on to deliver the goods each and every time.

The mystery behind the teenager's crazy behavior that leads to his death is a strong one with some excellent misdirection, and I always enjoy visiting fictional Posadas County down in southern New Mexico. Havill has a way of describing the landscape that puts me right there.

Havill's series has one of the absolute best ensemble casts to be found in fiction. In uncertain health and a chronic insomniac, seventy-year-old Bill Gastner leads the way with his investigative skills, diplomacy, and plain old common sense. In Bag Limit, readers get to see him not only as the sheriff but as a father, grandfather, boss, friend, and godfather. One of the things that makes him such a good sheriff is that he knows very nook and cranny of Posadas County and all of the people who live there--which does remind me of another police officer named Bruno who lives in the Southwest, too. Well, the southwest of France.

Each cast member in this series has his or her part to play, and as time passes, their roles change, children grow, some move away... life happens. This verisimilitude makes Havill's series a joy, as does his catchy turns of phrase such as "... boss may have had the personality of a sunstruck rattlesnake..."

This series is one to be savored by reading the books in order. The first book is Heartshot. Get a copy and read it. You can thank me later. ( )

72 year old Bill Gastner is just days away from retirement. Barring a catastrophe, under-sheriff Bob Torrez should win the election and take over.

He is expecting a quiet time for his last days in office. It is not to be. What begins as a routine drink drive case ends with a murder. Bill and his second in command find themselves embroiled in something far nastier than they first thought.

First-rate, first person narrative of life in a smallish New Mexico town where the sheriff knows just about everybody and if he doesn't know them, one of his deputies will be related to them.

The last in a series by Steven F. Havill. Well worth searching out the rest. ( )