Steven F. Havill

Bill Gastner, the reluctant sheriff of Posadas County, New Mexico, anticipates his last few days in office will be uneventful. That is, until local teen Matt Baca drives drunkenly into the back of Gastner’s cruiser, then flees into the night. His...

Linda Real, Reporter for the Posadas Register, barely survives a nighttime patrol with one of Undersheriff Bill Gastner’s deputies. The officer is killed by a blast from the same shotgun that ruined her face. Sheriff Gastner again teams up with...

Aging Posadas County Undersheriff Bill Gastner is taking a rare vacation in the mountains of Northern New Mexico. Still recovering from his quadruple bypass, Gastner heads to the hills to escape his physicians who keep preaching health reform. While...

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...

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...

Busy putting in stitches and bandaging lumberjacks' injuries, young Dr. Thomas Parks has no idea that his worst enemy is lurking in the sleepy village of Port McKinney in the spring of 1892. When one of the working girls at the Clarissa Hotel is...

To most people, hat pins are vestiges of the past, used now only by elderly ladies who don't leave home without a hat. But recently the notion store in Posadas County has been doing a good business selling hat pins to teenage girls. Following a "cat...

At a wellseasoned sixtynine, Sheriff Bill Gastner knows his Posadas, New Mexico, territory as well as he understands the foibles of the human condition. So when a backhoe crushes a man to death, it’s more instinct than fact that leaves him feeling...

A rattlesnake fang pegged in a teenager's eye is just the beginning of a spring day for Posadas Undersheriff Estelle Guzman. The injured lad's older brother goes missing, and is found dead in an arroyo, apparently killed by his cartwheeling ATV. But...

The rugged Cat Mesa country north of the village of Posadas is hosting the first annual Posadas 100, a cycle-cross bicycle race that promises to attract more than 140 competitors. Despite enough injuries during the pre-race practice to promise a...

Posadas County, New Mexico, is home to aging Undersheriff, William C. Gastner, pushing sixty, and the considerable girth of his uniform belt. He has no other life than law enforcement with retirement looming inevitably near. Gastner’s routine is...

In less than a moment, unexplained intentions, then murder, upend life in Posadas County, New Mexico. Posadas County, sitting along New Mexico's southern border, has enjoyed a surge in visitors, jobs, and prosperity since rancher Miles Waddell used...

One blizzardy New Mexico night, Posadas County Deputy Pasquale picks up a toddler scooting his Scamper along the shoulder of State 56.Yes, it's horrifying - a child apparently dumped out of a truck by his father. Nearly as horrifying is what unrolls...

What do you do when you inherit $330 million after taxes? If you're New Mexico rancher Miles Waddell, you build a dream. A flat-topped mesa and a third of a billion dollars equals NIGHTZONE, an astronomy-based theme park, complete with giant radio...

When a county employee is found shot to death in sun-drenched daylight while sitting in his county road grader, Undersheriff Bill Gastner is faced with puzzling questions. The simplest explanation--that an errant bullet from a careless target...

Sheriff Martin Holman of the Posadas County Sheriff's Department didn't like flying. Much less at night, with bad weather. So why he took a plane ride over a nearby mesa under those dangerous conditions is a question as disturbing as why somebody shot...

Rolling stone Wesley Crocker seems a harmless enough free spirit when Posadas County Undersheriff Bill Gastner offers him a lift on the road, then spots him a free dinner. Crocker beds down for the night on the high school athletic field. By morning,...

The disappearance of a young camper atop Cat Mesa convinces Undersheriff Bill Gastner and Estelle Reyes-Guzman that the boy has been spirited away. Duration - 9h 44m. Author - Steven F. Havill. Narrator - Rusty Nelson. Published Date - Wednesday, 18...

The young Dr. Thomas Parks expects to practice trauma medicine with a distinguished doctor in Port McKinney, Washington. What he does not expect is to be nearly killed within an hour of arriving. The accident changes his life, and with long hours of...

Former Posadas County Sheriff Bill Gastner, now a New Mexico Livestock Inspector, is enjoying a day on Herb Torrance’s Ranch-soaking in the sun as he counts a small herd of cattle and thinking about an upcoming lunch with an old friend back in town....

Not one, but two dead bodies are found in the harsh New Mexico desert. The first man's face is smashed beyond identification, and the second one appears to have been forced to dig his own grave before being murdered...execution style. Soon new Sheriff...

It's Christmas in Posadas County, and Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman is settling down to a quiet evening with her family and friend ex-Sheriff Bill Gastner, that is until her doctor husband gets a disturbing call. Retired chief-of-police Eduardo...

Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman is always busy, but more so now than ever. The sheriff is still not completely recovered from his stay in the hospital, and she is recovering from a hospital stay herself. After a long day at work, Estelle is happy to...

Posadas County Undersheriff Bill Gastner knows that ancient Anna Hocking didn’t fall down the fruit cellar stairs by accident. He is also certain that old man Reuben Fuentes knows nothing about the bodies scattered on his dusty, southern New Mexico...