Death Among the Saguaros, a murder mystery, is set in the borderland desert of southern Arizona where the most feared creature is not rattlesnake, tarantula, or scorpion, but a acoyote, a a smuggler of humans. Pima County Detective Marcos Mesa investigates the disappearance of Fred Cullpepper, one of his injured detectives, who stumbled upon a human smuggling operation. This mystery is more fact than fiction, wherein the exploited victims of the coyotes are the undocumented illegal border crossers, risking everything as they struggle toward a new life. Readers of crime fiction are rarely introduced to the real-life drama found in Death Among the Saguaros, an account of the horror that plays out every day in southern Arizona. Detective Mesa, Santa Cruz County Sheriff Bart Chisholm, and US Border Patrol officers join forces in this investigation of murder and kidnaping. Shocked by the seething, festering, criminal network of acoyotesa along the Mexican border, Mesa and the others are further thwarted by heavily armed soldier-of-fortune vigilantes who take the law into their own hands. During his captivity, Cullpepper is shocked by the inhumane acts of his captors. Time and extreme heat take their toll, and Cullpepper watches helplessly as the illegal immigrants begin to die after abandonment by their acoyotes.a Cullpepper knows his own death is imminent as he waits for Mesa to find and rescue him. Once again Bruno, a retired K-9 dog, is called for help. The reader joins Detective Mesa, weeping as he struggles to save his dying friend.