Arizona Borderlands Mystery

Deputy Sheriff Calvin Creede mostly works alone in one corner of Arizona’s smallest county. His job had been a simple one until the day a flash flood exposes the rusted remains of an old pickup. A body in the truck turns out to be the long-lost son of a prominent ranching family, and forensic evidence shows it was murder. Deputy Creede faces a 20-year-old cold case with too many suspects, from an ex-girlfriend and jealous family members to drug lords and looters of archaeological sites.

There is a killer at large in the oak grasslands of southeastern Arizona whose weapon of choice is a deadly variety of southwestern rattlesnake. Deputy Sheriff Calvin Creede doesn’t like snakes, but he and his compatriots seek to find the mountain cave from which a collection of Mojave rattlesnakes recently was looted. Then he must determine which of a variety of suspects has taken them home. Was it the leader of a gang of border vigilantes? Was it a greedy developer who will stop at nothing to gain control of land and water for his business ambitions? Or could it have been a recently disinherited trust child?

A recently retired schoolteacher, Grace Vieumilliers is busy adjusting to life as a newlywed and deputy sheriff specializing in forensic botany, when one of her best friends is found murdered on a hiking trail. In this, their third Arizona Borderland Mystery, Carl and Jane Bock once again take us to the grasslands and savannahs of southernmost Arizona, where Grace works with others in the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Department to search for the killer.