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 to worry -- and that's magnified when she learns that he's in Mexico's crime-ridden Mazatlan for a concert series where he may be the target for scam artists and kidnappers. Estelle's worries go from...

Recently named the new undersheriff of Posadas County, Estelle Reyes-Guzman investigates the disappearance of a local insurance broker and the death of a young single mother whose fatal motorcycle accident may have been caused by a vengeful local cop.

"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 shooter's rifle blew out Larry Zipoli's brains--is soon discarded as inconsistencies surface. The fatal bullet shows no rifling marks, and investigation reveals that the shooter walked directly toward the road...