Accustomed to the Dark - Walter Satterthwait

The "compelling" conclusion of the Southwestern mystery series culminates in a showdown between the Santa Fe PI and the convict who shot the woman he loves (Booklist).

Rita Mondragon is lying comatose and near death in a Santa Fe hospital, and her normally even-tempered partner and paramour, private detective Joshua Croft, is on a razor's edge. This is the second time Rita's been shot by Ernie Martinez-the first was years ago when he killed her husband and put Rita in a wheelchair-and now the recently escaped convict is on the run with his equally twisted cellmate Luiz Lucero.

Despite a massive police manhunt, and warnings from the FBI and the DEA to back off, Croft sets out to capture the killers himself. As the crazed convicts leave a trail of murder and destruction behind them-from New Mexico to Las Vegas to Denver and across Kansas and Texas-one by one, their pursuers drop by the wayside. Suddenly a strange twist of fate has left only one man hunter remaining-Joshua Croft-in a breathtaking kill-or-be-killed climax in the Florida Everglades.