Dennis Herrick: 27 books

He seems a bit disorganized, but Detective Esteban Verde is ready for the challenge when an American scuba diver is reported missing at the tourist community of San Carlos, Mexico. Verde juggles the Federal Police, his own sergeant, and a distraught widow—if that's what she really is. This short story was inspired by the author's own vacation to San Carlos.

NONFICTION ARTICLE — History remembers Coronado, who in 1540 invaded Pueblo country in what is now the United States. Few people have ever heard of Xauían, the Pueblo leader who led resistance against Coronado in America's first named Indian war.

In this short story, an 85-year-old Cochiti Pueblo man is dying of cancer, but when his daughter tries to put him into a hospital, he disappears. Sheriff's Deputy Alec Bluestone remembers the old man from his youth. Worried about him, Bluestone goes up into the mountains to look for the old man and...

A woman raised by her grandparents keeps her vigil by her grandfather's hospital bed, remembering his love and kindness

This short story won the 2004 Tony Hillerman Mystery Writing Contest. An Indian from Jémez Pueblo is shot and killed while hunting for rabbits to feed his family. The police think the shooting is just a hunting accident, so it's up to an Albuquerque newspaper reporter to prove what really happened.

A Vietnam infantry veteran saved an enemy soldier's AK-47 bullet from the war. Whenever he holds it today, it takes him back 40-some years to 1969 when it was a dangerous time to be a young man in America. He remembers his war experiences, his buddies, and what it was like for all of them in the jungle warfare. Many aging combat veterans will identify with this fiction short story .

In this short story, a woman agent for the National Security Agency arrives in Los Alamos, N.M., to investigate the death of another agent. His death looks like an accident, but she's convinced he was murdered by foreign spies who are trying to obtain secrets about the B61 nuclear bomb from Los Alamos...

This is a short story. It is dedicated to the combat veterans of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. An Army veteran who sacrificed a leg for his country returns home to reclaim a position with the county sheriff. He is assigned to the cold case of the murder of an archaeology student who had been digging up old pots near New Mexico pueblos.

Six short story mysteries involving the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico are combined here in one volume. They are also available as separate ebooks on amazon.com. "Hunting Season" can turn the hunters into the hunted. When police think a shooting death of a Jemez Pueblo man is a hunting...

This short story presents one scenario on how the first contact between humans and aliens of another planet might turn out.

A Pueblo policeman is tormented by the discovery of an ancestor's skull in a housing development being built over an ancient pueblo site. Should he stand by and see the skull relocated to a museum's archive basement, or should he shield tribal members who want to protect the ancestor's spirit journey...

COMBAT VETERAN JOEL BIRCHARD IS DETERMINED TO PREVENT THE ALIENS FROM COMPLETING THEIR CONQUEST OF EARTH EVEN IF IT MEANS THROWING ROCKS AT THEM. Most of the Earth's population is annihilated during the initial attack, and the few survivors find that nothing electrical will work. With time, remnants...

Climate Change #1 in series. After climate change raises sea levels and drowns New York City, humans adapt, and some continue to live on the upper floors of skyscrapers wherever possible.

A homeless shelter falls on hard times with little hope for needed cash. Then the money shows up. Many of these characters also appear in my mystery novel, "A Brother’s Cold Case."