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The southwestern United States has been a featured player in mystery novels for 60 years or so. As a "semi-native" who's lived in New Mexico longer than I care to admit, I enjoy seeking out new and different writers in my neck of the woods -- that is, my neck of the desert southwest.

Arizona's Sinclair Browning is a particular favorite. Browning's private eye, Trade Ellis, is a dirty-shirt cowgirl who operates on the "mean streets" of Tucson and the back roads of southern Arizona (Rode Hard and Put Away Dead). Now that "Walker, Texas Ranger" has been put out to pasture, the Lone Star State's in good hands with Bill Crider's Sheriff Dan Rhodes. What an officer of the law such as Sheriff Rhodes can't do, Rick Riordan's P.I. Tres Navarre can and will, from Austin to San Antonio and back again (Last King of Texas).

But it's New Mexico mysteries that continually beckon, a siren call of the cactus wren and the coyote. So many writers live in my home state, so many of them writing about the Land of Enchantment, you'd think we'd eventually run out of ideas. But the state has 400 years of history to draw on, and its diverse cultures -- Hispanic, Native American, and Anglo, not to mention Tibetan, Vietnamese, and African-American -- provide the writer fresh eyes with which to study the foibles of the criminally inclined.

Through their characters, Rudolfo Anaya (Shaman Winter), Connie Shelton (Honeymoons Can Be Murder), Steve Brewer (Crazy Love) and Judith Van Gieson (Vanishing Point) stalk the mean streets of Albuquerque, and Steven F. Havill's Undersheriff Bill Gastner patrols a small town somewhere in southern New Mexico (Privileged to Kill). Everybody knows Tony Hillerman's Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee cover the Navajo Nation (Hunting Badger), but so does Ella Clah, Aimée and David Thurlo's Navajo FBI agent (Red Mesa). Robert Westbrook's Native American P.I. Howard Moon Deer and his Anglo boss, Jack Wilder, call Taos home (Red Moon). So does Mari Ulmer's Christina Garcia y Grant (Carreta de la Muerte), an attorney, bed & breakfast owner, and amateur detective.

There's so much variety in New Mexico, so many ingredients for a mystery stew (with a dollop of green chile, of course). Not so long ago I overheard a couple of other authors lamenting the difficulty of writing about their hometowns, major American cities. "There's only so much to say, and then you run out of ideas. How do you handle it?" they asked me.

"¡No problema! I live in Santa Fe. My P.I.'s fighting crime from art galleries to the barrio, from the state capitol to mountain villages, Indian pueblos, and New Age communes. I'll never run out of material!" I answered.

If the New Mexican mystery is fast becoming a subgenre, then the Santa Fe mystery's a super-subgenre all its own, with its own distinctive characteristics. At 7,000 feet, the rarified atmosphere fails to give the traditional "cozy" mystery breathing room. An amateur sleuth, such as Jake Page's blind sculptor Mo Bowdre, is a notable exception (The Lethal Partner). Most of us write about professionals like Richard Martin Stein's Detective Johnny Ortiz (Interloper), Walter Satterthwait's Joshua Croft (Accustomed to the Dark) or my own Matty Madrid, these latter two private investigators in Santa Fe.

Sarah Lovett writes detective fiction set in the City Different -- her Dr. Sylvia Strange is a forensic psychologist. In her first case, Dangerous Attachments, Strange evaluates an inmate at the Penitentiary of New Mexico. Lovett herself worked at the pen as an investigator for the state Attorney General's Office. I've worked there, too, but I've learned from Lovett's enviable ability to shed some light on that dark and bloody world-and the even darker mind of a killer.

In her latest case, Dantes' Inferno, Dr. Strange ventures far afield, to a Los Angeles threatened by a mad bomber. But the lure of New Mexico is never far away: "Under the spell of midnight she let the stillness of that remembered desert fill her cells, expand her lungs, lure her thoughts to a higher plane where the air was thin and rarified."

Pat Frieder lives in Albuquerque, but she knows Santa Fe well, and her detective --disbarred attorney and erstwhile private eye Matty Donahue -- lives in the heart of the ancient city. In Signature Murder and Privileged Communications, Donahue fights her own inner demons as well as the bad guys in black hats.

Michael McGarrity, on the other hand, is a neighbor of mine (as is Lovett). A former sheriff's deputy, McGarrity writes about what he knows, and what he knows best is the vagaries of the human heart. As deputy chief of the state police, McGarrity's Kevin Kerney fights crime throughout the state. But in his latest adventure, Under Color of Law, Kerney's taken on the thankless job of Santa Fe police chief. Perversely, for somebody who loves to write and read about Santa Fe, my favorite McGarrity is Hermit's Peak. Kerney's inherited 6,400 acres of ranch land out where the mountains meet the High Plains. He's also inherited one very dead body.

In the works of each of these writers, the land itself becomes a series character, a force for good or evil. The fabled light of the high desert, which draws so many painters to New Mexico, shines on dark and bloody deeds and even blacker hearts.

Deadly Sin

Look for P.J. Grady's books on BookSense.com

Read an excerpt from Maximum Insecurity

Santa Fean PJ Grady is the author of the Matty Madrid mystery series. Maximum Insecurity was nominated for a Shamus Award for Best First Private Eye Novel. Deadly Sin is number two in the series.

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