A New Mexico Author

I have recently gotten reacquainted with a very prolific New Mexico author, Steven F. Havill. Mr. Havill’s novels that I like the best are a long running mystery series about law enforcement in a mythical New Mexico county called Posadas County which he has placed in southern New Mexico between Deming and Lordsburg along I-10. He started the series out in the 90′s and the main character is the undersheriff of the county named Bill Gastner. Havill also developed various other characters that are present in the rest of the books. One of the characters is a deputy sheriff named Estelle Guzman who has a somewhat father-daughter relationship with Gastner. In the last few books Guzman has taken center stage now that Gastner has retired from the department and gone on to other things but is still present as a character.

It is a difficult trick to move a series along with different main characters but Havill has done it and done it well. These are people that the reader comes to know and like and the author has given them a very comfortable feel by giving out details of their personal lives and involving the reader in their thought processes. I feel that I have come to know these people.

I would recommend this author to anyone who is interested in New Mexico. Havill is very accurate in his descriptions of the southwestern part of the state and of the people who live there and his novels are a very entertaining read.

Unlike many other authors Havill does not seem to have his own web site but most of his books can be found for sale online on either Amazon or Albris.