Book Review: Dead Weight

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Dead Weight     Amazon US PB Amazon US HC Amazon US MSReader eBook Amazon Canada PB Amazon Canada HC
Steven F. Havill
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Police Procedural
Series: Bill Gastner # 8
St. Martin’s, Oct 2000, $23.95, 288 pp.

Sheriff Bill Gastner has been part of Posedas County, New Mexico for his entire life and part of the sheriff’s department since 1966. Now a septuagenarian, Bill nears retirement waiting for the upcoming election to select his replacement.

However, instead of gracefully fading into the background, Bill finds one of the most difficult cases of his illustrious career dumped on his lap. An internal investigation of a member of his staff, Deputy Tom Pasquale is accused of more than just destroying the rental property he leases. Apparently, the county commissioners have received a note from a concerned citizen claiming that Pasquale has hit on Mexican nationals for $100 every time he stops them.

Bill also has a potential homicide to deal to investigate. One of the battling Sissons, stars of the local family fight scene dubbed the “Jim and Grace” show, died in an apparent misfortune. Did Grace finally kill Jim or did a grotesque accident really occur? The latest release in Steven F. Havill’s great police procedural,

DEAD WEIGHT, is another superb entry in the Sheriff Gastner collection. The two prime inquiries are fully developed because the charcaters seem more like flesh and blood than part of a novel, even for someone reading their first book in the series. The story line centers on the residents of the county and the surrounding landscape, although the police investigations are in full bloom. Anyone who wants a cerebral character-based plot, the Gastner novels, in which the first few are being reprinted, is must reading.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner