Thriller?

Review: I want to be very, very clear. This is not a mystery. If you are thinking of curling up and reading a mystery/thriller, and working your way through the catacombs of mental fuckery, this is not it. There are no covert connections in partial reveal to send you down the whodunnit road.

What the novel is, is pages and pages of police procedures with sudden infusions of how cutesy grandkids are, and how giving and overworked the Guzmans are, and how beautiful Estelle is and how brilliant their kids are. Blah dee blah blah. Oh sure, I wanna read about dinner around the table and little scamps making chocochip cookies. Yes, he wrote "chocochip".

This novel will leave you frustrated and angry that you wasted your time on complete blather. OR, you can get into well written scenarios, flip through the familial shjt as it has no bearing on anything, and admire well crafted characters. Your choice.

I received this ARC for an honest review.

2.7/5

If you like small town police procedurals, but haven’t been reading Steven F. Havill’s Posadas County Mysteries, you’re missing out. If It Isn’t One Thing… is a carefully plotted mystery featuring Undersheriff Estelle Reyes Guzman and her understaffed team. As with other small town mysteries, there’s an emphasis on limited resources, and juggling several cases at the same time.

Posadas County New Mexico has a dedicated team of professionals, even though they’re forced to fall by the wayside due to injuries at times. Undersheriff Estelle Reyes Guzman knows how dangerous a domestic dispute can be, but she’s forced to leave one she’s dealing with a little earlier than she would like. There’s a major accident blocking the highway after a pickup truck pulling a horse trailer collided with a semi. One driver is dead; one is seriously impaired, and the horse was lucky to survive to wander off and graze. But, now Guzman’s team has to figure out how the accident happened, and who was responsible, with a truck that came out of Mexico, and a dead driver who shouldn’t have that horse trailer.

While her team investigates, they’re harassed by the horse’s owner, who seems more concerned about the horse than the dead driver. And, the County Manager is interested in the horse as well.

But, Guzman can’t forget that domestic dispute because she gets a call that it escalated overnight. Raul and Mindy Cardonas are still fighting, but the Undersheriff isn’t the first of her team on the site, and it only gets worse. Between a stabbing, an officer down from a shooting, and an unusual crime scene, she has her hands full.

Havill has aged his characters in the course of the series. Readers are familiar with the police and many in the community who are related to each other. Guzman and a county lieutenant are both within a month of retirement. At one time, Undersheriff Bill Gastner was the protagonist while he trained Guzman. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens with the series with Guzman wanting to retire and spend more time with her family. But, I’m just thinking about that with a series that has been well-written with characters that are connected.

As I said before, if you’re a fan of small town police procedurals, you should be reading Steven F. Havill’s books.

I could not get interested in this book. I read over a third of the way in and there was nothing that grabbed my attention. I wanted to like this book, but I just couldn't.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book for my honest review.

Although the crime rate is high, Posadas county in New Mexico sounds like a nice place to live. If It Isn't One Thing by Steven F. Havill is another great book featuring Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman. The only downside to this book is that former sheriff Bill Gastner has a very small role in it. I just love this and have ever since I read the first book in this series many years ago. I have said it before and I will say it again, I am a sucker for small town stories. Havill is a master storyteller and I hope we get many more books from him in the future. In this book we find out that a tragic road accident can be so much more and involve large parts of northern America and parts of Mexico as well. Well written as usual and even some humor thrown in. I really recommend this series and author. A big thank you goes to Severn House and Netgalley for supplying me with this great advance copy. The book hits the shelves in early March 2025.

I really enjoyed this as a mystery novel, it had that plot that I was looking for and enjoyed the overall feel of this. The character worked with the storyline and was hooked from the first page. It had what I enjoyed from the Posadas County Mystery series and enjoyed how good Steven F. Havill wrote this.