Easy Errors by Steven F Havill

This is a tale of the days when Robert Torrez was a rookie.  He's out on a ride along observing night time activity.  He doesn't realize he's beginning one of the worst days of his life...

Poisoned Pen Press and Edelweiss allowed me to read this book for review (thank you).  It will be published November 7th.

Undersheriff Gastner is at home in his adobe and he's enjoying the silence.  When he hears a crash despite the 2' depth of his walls, he knows it's bad.  He calls it in and then responds.  As he looks at the accident his heart sinks.  He's pretty sure they have all died.  Then the other cops show up, including the rookie.  What makes it even worse is that two of the dead are the rookie's younger brother and sister. Gastner tries to Torrez to go home and comfort his parents but he won't go.  He wants to figure out how this happened.  So begins a sad story that has little comfort for the characters or the reader.

There's more than one group who had been drinking and shooting in the same vicinity.  They shot up a water tank and the windmill at a farm.  It was a good place to party but mixing guns and alcohol is a mistake.  The kids won't live to regret it, but the adults do.  Especially when one more dead girl shows up on the property...

Being in the wrong place at the wrong time can be deadly.  This story emphasizes that point.  The only joy in the story was the detective work Torrez used to make sense of what happened.  He was a very smart and dedicated rookie and later became a very good cop.  There are several books in this series as these two characters grow older and solve cases.  Check them out for more to read.