Statute of Limitations — Steven F. Havill

It's Christmas Eve in Posadas County, New Mexico, and the bad-luck snowball really gets moving downhill for Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman. Former police chief Eduardo Martinez suffers a heart attack while chasing car thieves at a local motel; a deputy's fiancee is found murdered in an arroyo; and Estelle's retired boss, Bill Gastner, is left for dead after a blow to the skull.

Suspecting somehow that these incidents are linked, Estelle and an achy-headed Gastner probe the death of Janet Tripp, the quiet young woman engaged to Estelle's best deputy Mike Sisneros. But the trail is bone-dry, dusty and buried in years of secrets, denial and murder. It takes a tireless Estelle and a seasoned old-timer like Gastner to piece together the clues, and stop a determined killer from getting a second chance to put the former undersheriff in his grave.