Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman is in
her patrol unit and driving on a quiet evening in Posadas County, New Mexico,
when she hears the relaxed voice of Sergeant Thomas Pasquale calling in a license
platy check to the new dispatcher on duty. It is November as Reverse: A
Posadas County Mystery by Steven F. Havill begins, and the weather has
been unseasonably warm. The license plate soon comes back to a totally
different car than the one in the parking lot of NightZone. The currently unoccupied car has been hidden
on the far end of a parking lot and sandwiched between an older station wagon
and a large pickup truck. After a short cellphone discussion with Sergeant
Pasquale, she decides to run code and respond as his backup.
She never makes it.
As her brilliantly lit departmental Charger
rockets down the highway, she collides with a large elk and its baby. The crash
is devastating to her, the car, and the elk. Minutes later, Sheriff Jackie
Taber, who was a few miles behind her on the same road as she too was already
headed to NightZone, is on scene and starts a complicated rescue response.
In the aftermath, Estelle is more determined
to retire at the end of the year, as scheduled. She soon learns that she is not
the only one about to leave the department. Change is coming, the torch is
being passed, and those left in the small department, as well as everyone else,
are going to have to deal with a seismic shift in personnel.
A small department that is also dealing
with an ongoing staff shortage, political and budget issues, and crime problems.
That also includes the vexing problem of what happened to a 1967 Corvette that
was being raffled off to pay for new and much needed church roofs. The car was
swiped from the service area of the local dealership. That never should have
happened. Where is the car? Who took it? Just two of the many questions that
need to be answered as the raffle draws closer by the hour.
Not to mention determining what happened
to the local teen found near death by the old and very flooded local quarry? It
has been abandoned for years. Nobody should have been out there. From the state
of the kid, he clearly was there, at some point.
What follows is another complicated read
featuring characters that are old friends at this point. Characters that are
never static, but just like real people in our lives, evolve and change over
time. As a longtime reader and a big-time fan of the series, it is fun to again
visit with characters that feel like friends and family. To visit again an area
of New Mexico that is clearly loved by Mr. Havill. None of us are getting any
younger and getting to once again go back to Posadas County is a real treat and
much appreciated.
The latest installment of a wonderful
series, Reverse: A Posadas County Mystery Series, is strongly
recommended. As is the series.
My digital ARC came from the publisher,
Severn House, through NetGalley, with no expectation of a review.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2026
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