Steven F. Havill, Convenient Disposal

Convenient Disposal

Steven F. Havill

Dunne, Nov 2004, $23.95, 260 pp.

ISBN: 0312324049

In Posadas County, New Mexico, following a volleyball game, middle school students Carmen Acosta and Deena Hurtado got into a fight over Paul Otero. Both fourteen-year-old girls were suspended. A few days later, Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman lectures honor student Deena, but also confiscates a potential weapon, a sharpened six-inch hat pin. Estelle reads Deena the riot act; case closed. Not long after that, Carmen is beaten unconscious with a stab wound to the middle ear that came from a honed hat pin. Estelle has doubts that a skinny young teen could have inflicted the brutal beating.

While Carmen is in the hospital, her neighbor, County manager Kevin Ziegler, vanishes. Estelle notices discrepancies between the image Kevin portrayed to his constituency as effective and efficient on the job and healthy living off the job; yet she finds evidence that he probably smoked cigarettes and drank alcohol or someone with him did. As Estelle continues to search for the missing administrator she wonders if the vicious teen thrashing is linked to Kevin's disappearance, but how seems elusive.

In her third appearance as the lead (retired Sheriff Bill Gaston still makes appearances and provides advice), Estelle proves she is a superstar in her own light as she easily carries the tale. Perhaps the New Mexico setting that Steven F. Havill brings so vividly to light made the transition so smooth; but more likely it is simply the author's talent. The storyline is actually different than previous tales as the plot goes into hyperspeed and stays there throughout the action-packed thriller. CONVENIENT DISPOSAL is a terrific, refreshing entry in one of the best police procedural series around today.

Harriet Klausner