Death on a Desert Hillside — Gary J. George

In the foothills of the desert mountains west of Smoke Tree, someone has murdered Caleb and Eunice Clovis. They were impoverished squatters living a life of bare subsistence far off the beaten track in a miserable lean-to made of discarded lumber and cast off building materials. Who would want to kill them? And why? There seems to be no motive for the crime. Lieutenant Carlos Caballo, known throughout the Lower Colorado River Basin simply as “Horse,” is charged with solving the crime. A crime that might not have been discovered for months except for a minor twist of fate. As the commander of the Smoke Tree Substation of the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, Horse has other issues to deal with at the same time. A town divided by Highway 66 into haves and have-nots where prejudice and anger simmer just beneath the surface; a corrupt and incompetent local police department; small town politics; cattle rusting in the river bottom north of Smoke Tree; and the possibility his best young deputy is about to request a transfer. With the help of his friend Chemehuevi Joe, a mysterious, self-sufficient, and deadly Native American, Horse sets off on the trail of a killer who is not done killing in this fourth book of the Smoke Tree Series.