When the first Posadas County Mystery, Heartshot, published in 1991, Bill Gastner was the county Undersheriff. Over time Bill became Sheriff, then retired, and Robert Torrez took over the top spot. But what were Torrez's first days as a rookie officer like? Terrible!It's 1986. Undersheriff Bill Gastner is enjoying his usual insomnia alone inside his old adobe when jolted by a horrendous noise. Dreading what he will find, he hastens to the nearby interstate exit where a violent crash has occurred. Not only is the vehicle that struck the support pillars totaled and the driver and a passenger crushed inside, a dead boy has been ejected.As the appalled Gastner recognizes the youth and swings into action, the first deputy to join him at the scene is rookie Robert Torrez, the department's newest hire. Before Gastner can head him off, Torrez sees that the boy is his spirited younger brother. And the girl crushed inside the SUV is a younger sister. The driver of the...

Gifted fifteen-year-old Francisco Guzman has become an internationally renowned concert pianist, touring the world under the auspices of his music conservatory. That gives his mother, Posadas County Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman, plenty of reason to worry—and that's magnified when she learns that he's in Mexico's crime-ridden Mazatlan for a concert series where he may be the target for scam artists and kidnappers. Estelle's worries go from bad to worse when her uncle—a man she didn't know existed—surfaces in an attempt to mend family ties and leaves a trail of corpses in his wake. Estelle's attempts to glean family history—the story of her childhood in Tres Santos over the border—from her adopted mother, a woman now in her nineties, go nowhere. Meanwhile, escalating events put Sheriff Bobby Torrez in jeopardy, as they do newly wealthy rancher Miles Waddell and his pet project, the multi-million dollar theme park, NightZone, set high on a county...

Posadas County, New Mexico, is in the news.NightZone, a mammoth astronomy theme park, is bringing in jobs, media, and such new infrastructure as a slick narrow-gauge railway to transport tourists from the village of Posadas to the tramway running up the mesa to the project's site. And the Posadas High School girls' volleyball team is on a hot winning streak, exciting everyone.But more news, not good, breaks. Volleyball Coach Clint Scott has been found gunned-down in the girls' shower room, the victim of four bullets, one fired nearly point blank into his heart. Dead for hours, killed soon after the end of last night's game.And, last night, a homegrown Banksy had tagged both one of the railway cars and a section of NightZone's giant radio telescope dish. Then, apparently, this young artist began work on a section of wall outside the girls' locker room at the high school—a project that was clearly—dramatically—interrupted.