This mystery series is set in the modern American west which is surprisingly complex and nothing like the old myths surrounding America’s western frontier.

Begin with an interesting place:

Drinkwater County is a fictional place. But it is based on a real county in Idaho that is larger than the state of Massachusetts and has a population of less than 60,000. It is sometimes called “the American Serengeti.”

It is also a place that billionaire “trophy ranchers” have recently discovered.

A dozen similarly large counties are scattered across the American West. I visited the sheriffs in four of them—one in Colorado had a woman “acting sheriff.” She was later elected.

Add an interesting main character:

Sheriff Samantha (Sam) Nielsen grew up in Drinkwater Country.

          Her grandmother, Maddy, owns the biggest ranch.

          Her mother, Xan (short for Alexandra), is a famous painter.

Her best friend, Mary Manyskies, is a no-nonsense lawyer who specializes in Native American rights.

Her Big Fish (the one who always gets away) is the billionaire who entertains international trophy hunters at his forty-room hunting lodge and is scheming to take control Drinkwater’s water.

Her father, Jay Evers, is a ten-term Congressman. Divorced and remarried, he acts like he wants to be helpful, when Sam asks, but he never is.

Her on-again, off-again love interest, Miles Gurwitz, bought a ranch in Drinkwater to use as a retreat when working on film scripts.

Sam returned to Drinkwater from California after her husband died. She needed a place to raise her eight-year-old daughter and chose family over LA's faceless crowds and Drinkwater's dusty roads over LA's endless freeways.

Becoming the Sheriff of Drinkwater just kind of happened. But that doesn't mean she doubts her ability to do the job.

Throw-in interesting plots:

In the first novel, Rainbow Horses, a twenty-year old murder comes to light when it looks like the same production company that covered up that old murder wants to return to shoot a new tv series in Drinkwater. Also, Sam’s Big Fish is building a power plant. That makes no sense. Idaho is already selling excess power to Nevada. Sam believes that when something doesn’t make sense, then something is wrong. That applies to both the power plant and the idea that the production company wants to return to Drinkwater. While Sam is worried about those issues, her daughter is being stalked by someone who was once in love with Sam. He was delighted when she returned to Drinkwater. That is, until he discovered that she wasn’t the same person she was before. Now he is obsessed with the daughter because she is more like how he remembers Sam.

Sam saves her daughter and uncovers her Big Fish’s current scheme. She also solves the old murder, which turns out to be worse than anyone thought. It involves murders, not a murder.

In the second novel, Spotted Spirit Dog, a birder goes missing. Happens every year during bird-season. Drinkwater's lakes are part of a major flyway, meaning thousands of birders arrive in Drinkwater every spring and every fall. Many lack basic wilderness skills, meaning Sam often calls on her volunteer search and rescue team to help find one or more of them. But this birder turns up dead miles from where she was last seen. The body has been moved and the person who moved the body doesn't seem to be the same person who killed her. Sam suspects the husband, in fact, she suspects he’s killed before—maybe as many as three times. Things get further complicated when the motive for moving the body is related to a local ditch company that has been stealing water for over a hundred years. And the head of the ditch company is the man Sam's grandmother is about to marry.

In the third novel, Green Men and Pink Snails, Sam's grandmother is planning to block Drinkwater's main bridge with a bulldozer to protest US Fish and Wildlife’s decision to deny local ranchers access to one of Drinkwater's main streams in order to protect a rare pink snail. The media is calling this the latest “Sagebrush War.” But in previous so-called “sagebrush wars,” people died. Sam would like her grandmother not to be the latest casualty. This is complicated when the locals demand that “their sheriff” side with them. Sam, however, is legally required to enforce the law—meaning US Fish and Wildlife’s decision. Meanwhile, strange lights appear on one of Drinkwater’s remote salt flats and a UFO believer, who claims to have been abducted once, turns up dead. Was he murdered by aliens as he long feared he would be? Not crazy enough? A Chinese archeologist shows up looking for evidence that Chinese mariners wintered over in Drinkwater, as early as the Middle Ages, before returning to China with their trade goods. He thinks the pink snails are proof of his theory. If so, the snails are invasive not endangered. In the end, Sam solves the murder and sorts the rest of this, but not without wondering why all the "crazies" seem to drift to remote places like Drinkwater. In this case, however, she's glad they did.

In the fourth novel, A Ghost of Dinosaur Bones, a young man dies in a gay-bashing incident. Then a stash of dinosaur bones is found in an old Drinkwater barn. They have been hidden there for at least fifty years and seem to be related to the double murder of the lesbian couple who originally found those bones. The daughter of one of the murdered women believes her mother haunts the barn—whispering into the wind, “Give me back my bones.” Sam sees the gay bashers brought to justice, although several of their families protest mightily, putting Sam’s job and maybe her life at risk. She also resolves what happened to the lesbian couple and why their bones were hidden. Sam doesn’t believe in ghosts, but she admits this ghost might have helped solve her own murder—just a little.

The fifth novel, Wolverine Doubles Back, begins with an annual men’s outing sponsored by the billionaire who has built a private hunting lodge in Drinkwater. Once a year he offers his friends a chance to play at being warriors for a long weekend. Things go wrong when one of the participants murders a business rival. And a young indigenous girl is raped. Her grandfather, who doesn’t have to pretend to be a warrior, gets his revenge (without killing anyone) but gets blamed for the murder of the business rival. Sam sorts it all out despite interference from the billionaire’s security team.

The first book in this series, Rainbow Horses, is complete.

The second book, Spotted Spirit Dog, is complete as an early draft. 

The third book, Green Men and Pink Snails, is two-thirds written as a first draft.

A Ghost of Dinosaur Bones and Wolverine Doubles Back are outlined.

Notes for additional titles in the series exist in an “ideas file.”