Air of mystery: 'Santa Fe Assassin,' 'A Murder in Old Town' recent releases by Albuquerque authors

Two Albuquerque residents — James C. Wilson and Kay Cordtz — are the authors of recent mysteries.

Wilson’s latest novel is “Santa Fe Assassin: A Fernando Lopez Santa Fe Mystery.” It’s the eleventh in a series featuring the recurring character of private investigator Fernando Lopez.

Wilson seems to grind out a novel every six months.

Air of mystery: 'Santa Fe Assassin,' 'A Murder in Old Town' recent releases by Albuquerque authors

“It gives me something to do in my retirement,” he said in a phone interview. “I love these characters. I string plots together with mysteries, but what really interests me are the characters.”

Wilson seems enamored with the Santa Fe of the 1970s when he lived there.

Jack Lacy is the name of the Santa Fe assassin in the title, though he doesn’t pull the trigger until the book’s conclusion.

“He’s not based on anyone I know,” Wilson said. “He’s a character type I’ve come across. He doesn’t say much. He’s somber, distant.”

Lacy is usually armed, can be menacing in his mentation, and at times is accused of being paranoid.

He’s come to New Mexico because he was hired to assassinate a government official at a protest at Nageezi, near Chaco Culture National Historical Park.

But things don’t go according to plan.

However, someone else is shot and killed at the protest. The victim is Andy Dejon of Abiquiú, and his death is a sidebar. Dejon was the cheating husband of Ruby Montez’s sister, Tessa. Ruby is Fernando’s drinking and lunch buddy at a few Canyon Road venues.

Lacy heads for Santa Fe, staying at La Fonda. There Lacy reconnects with his old Marine Corps buddy Antonio Blake, a just-resigned cop with the Santa Fe Police Department.

Antonio is also friends with Fernando, a former chief of detectives in Santa Fe, now trying to retire as a private investigator.

Antonio keeps asking Fernando to help extricate Lacy from dicey situations of his own making. Fernando has a hard time saying no.

Lacy finds himself up against a Mexican cartel’s New Mexico boss, Silva Archivada, and his goons. Archivada demands Lacy return the $250,000 advance that Lacy received for the planned hit. Lacy says he doesn’t give refunds.

Archivada is representing the business that had hired Lacy for the hit.

He also intimidates Fernando and kidnaps Antonio because they’re Lacy’s allies.

Wilson wastes too much space repeatedly reminding readers the names of streets and highways Fernando travels in and out of Santa Fe. Example: “Fernando drove down to the Paseo and around to East Alameda Street. He took the first right on Cathedral Place and then turned left on San Francisco Street, across from La Fonda.”

Please. This is a mystery, not a travel guide.

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The other Albuquerque resident with a recently published mystery is Kay Cordtz. The mystery, “A Murder in Old Town,” is Cordtz’s debut work of fiction.

The main character is an inquisitive homeless grandmother named Fortuna.

Cordtz said Fortuna is based on a real homeless person Cordtz had observed — but never met — when she lived in an apartment across Rio Grande Boulevard from Old Town.

In the mystery novel, Fortuna is peripatetic. She rests on a bench, hangs out in a hallway, uses a public restroom in Old Town. Fortuna is watchful of the behavior of the people she notices regularly.

While she doesn’t know anything about that woman on whom Fortuna is based, “she reminds me that every homeless person has a story,” Cordtz wrote in the book’s preface.

From her apartment’s balcony, she said, “I saw things happen that I didn’t understand. So I made up the story to explain the weirdness going on around me.”

The story opens with a lengthy chapter focused on Fortuna. We see her on the move in and near Old Town. She carries a rolling suitcase and an umbrella. She also carries a gun. One arm is lame.

A lover of books, Fortuna spends much of her time reading “The Great Gatsby.”

She confides in the specter of her late abuela, Ofelia.

Hearing a gunshot, Fortuna spots a young boy running into a hollowed out log in the river.

Police question her. Fortuna denies seeing anyone. They continue their search for the person who may have fatally shot someone and stolen their bicycle.

The novel describes a snapshot of a drug culture, primarily in Downtown-Old Town Albuquerque. Readers meet a cross-section of people in the neighborhood, some doing drugs, some dealing drugs, others trying to distance themselves from drugs.

The characters are fabricated, Cordtz said, and the story is “fiction based on actual events ... The police didn’t find the shooter for over a year.”

Cordtz said she is not planning to write another novel, maybe short stories. If so, she should revive the intriguing Fortuna.