Steve Brewer Books in Order

Albuquerque PI Bubba Mabry thinks he has landed an easy bodyguard job, until his mystery client turns out to be Elvis, or someone very much like him. Then a death and a disappearance leave Bubba looking like the obvious suspect.

Broke PI Bubba Mabry takes two unlikely jobs at once, one from a pimp whose girls are being murdered, another from a woman obsessed with stolen dolls. The trail runs through vice, politics, and plenty of trouble on Albuquerque's East Central.

Bubba heads to Taos to bring home a wealthy woman's granddaughter from a women-only commune. What should have been a retrieval job turns into a murder case full of secrecy, belief, and bad motives.

When a biology professor is killed, Bubba Mabry and reporter Felicia Quattlebaum start pulling at threads tied to shady land deals and a mob-connected developer. The deeper they dig, the uglier Albuquerque real estate looks.

A Texas millionaire's missing son pulls Bubba into a ransom game with his smug rival, William J. Pool. As the search turns violent, Bubba also has to deal with the painful return of the father who vanished from his life years ago.

Sports columnist Drew Gavin agrees to help an old flame's husband with a gambling mess, only to find the man dead and himself under suspicion. The case forces Drew into a grim mix of bookies, old loyalties, and fading glory.

A rich client sends Bubba into the polished world of an exclusive gated community to dig up old secrets. Instead of a simple background job, he finds infidelity, class tension, and murder hiding behind the nice walls.

Now sports editor, Drew Gavin gets dragged into murder when a fellow reporter wakes beside a dead cheerleader and remembers nothing. Clearing his friend's name means digging through basketball money, tech deals, and people who do not like questions.

A contract hit in a Las Vegas casino sends professional killer Lily Marsden running from mobsters, casino bosses, and a disgraced ex-cop with his own score to settle. Violence, pursuit, and uneasy attraction drive the chase.

In sunny Coronado, an ex-con, a fake prince, a bank guard, a fireman, and a hard-headed divorcee drift toward the same bank heist. Greed and bad timing keep changing the plan, never for the better.

This humorous collection grows out of Brewer's newspaper columns on working at home, raising kids, and handling domestic life without much dignity. It is a light, self-mocking survival guide for househusbands and housewives alike.

Classic-car thief Sam Hill thinks he has scored big until he opens a stolen Thunderbird and finds a corpse in the trunk. Framed and furious, he goes after the crooks who set him up, with revenge very much in mind.

After a robbery goes wrong, three violent fools force an elderly ex-bank robber to help them pull one last score. They think they are using Vince Carson, but Vince and his wife have plans of their own.

A man in a gorilla suit shoots Bubba Mabry's would-be client in a restaurant and vanishes. Bubba follows the case into the Albuquerque zoo, where strange rivalries and fresh bodies make a bad day much worse.

Retired programmer Matt Donahue is dragged back to his old company when kidnappers demand he deliver ransom for a stolen computer game code. Old grudges and tech money turn the job into a dangerous chase.

Solomon Gage has spent years cleaning up messes for the wealthy Sheffield family. When the patriarch's greedy sons push a dangerous uranium deal and decide Gage is in the way, loyalty turns into open war.

Hitman Bob is sent to kill a scientist whose new fuel cell could wreck the oil business. Once he sees the stakes, he switches sides and fights to get her out alive.

Eric Newlin wants out of California's backwoods dead end life, but instead he gets sucked into a kidnapping scheme. Easy money quickly turns into a grim, darkly funny mess of bad choices and worse company.

Stuck with a fading casino and rising debts, Nick Papadopoulos arranges a robbery of his own business. It should be the perfect fix, until rival owners, hired muscle, and double-crosses start piling up.

Christmas gets weird fast when a panicked elf finds Santa dead at a local mall. Bubba Mabry ends up in the middle of a holiday murder with too many costumes, too many lies, and no festive way out.

Ray Bunch and his crew have been robbing marijuana dispensaries with little trouble, until a banker gets shot during one job. Suddenly cops, politicians, growers, and a cartel all want something from the fallout.

Brewer turns fake wisdom into a running joke, collecting cracked maxims and bent life lessons that sound helpful right up until they collapse. It is quick, dry, and proudly useless as self-help.

A trip from tiny Pandora, New Mexico, to a festival in Santa Fe opens the door to far more trouble than Loretta expected. Small-town instincts meet big-city weirdness, secrets, and a mystery that keeps spreading.

An unexpected bit of cash sets off trouble in this brisk crime short. Brewer turns a lucky break into a quick chain of bad choices and rising danger.

Bubba is hired to find a missing stripper called Joy Forever, and the job looks grubby but manageable. Then federal attention, club politics, and Felicia's corruption reporting all crash into the same case.

A promised reward turns dangerous in this tight little crime story. Brewer keeps the focus on money, leverage, and the ugly price that comes due when a deal finally reaches its payoff.

Two old friends sit down for their regular weekly card game and find that one long-buried secret has changed everything. What begins as routine ends in a tense, intimate reckoning.

Rusty Milner drives drunk to an isolated trailer with a shotgun and murder on his mind, convinced his wife has run off with his old friend. Love, adultery, revenge, and rural noir do the rest.

Rick Steen finds himself handcuffed, on his knees, and watching another man dig his grave in rural Arkansas. From there, crosses and double-crosses pile up fast, and nobody gets out clean.

Buried in debt, Jackie Nolan starts hijacking semis around Albuquerque for fast cash. Then one truck turns out to be loaded with stolen Army weapons, and suddenly crooks, killers, and the government all want her.

Running from witness protection, Jackie Nolan heads back toward Albuquerque and grabs a dead woman's identity on the way. It feels like a smart shortcut until she inherits the stranger's dangerous life and all of its unfinished business.

Fresh out of juvenile detention, Josh Nieto lands a job driving nearly blind loan shark Malcolm Hunt. When Hunt's Dixie Mafia past catches up with him, Josh gets dragged into a blood feud that could send him straight back to jail.

Lucky Flanagan agrees to smuggle illegal Mexican bologna into Albuquerque in hopes of fixing his life and winning back his wife. Instead he becomes the perfect fall guy in a ridiculous, deadly scheme.

This later collection serves up more of Brewer's crooked advice, one-liners, anti-aphorisms, and comic rules for getting through life badly but with style. Read it for laughs, not guidance.

Heist pro Rick Evert spots opportunity in the courier business and starts chasing a bigger score hidden inside an ordinary setup. The plan looks neat on paper, then bad timing and betrayal do their work.

Bubba takes a simple security job at a private poker game and watches it blow up into robbery and payback. To stay alive, he has to recover the stolen loot while Felicia investigates a crooked land deal tied to the same crowd.