Product Description

Michael McGarrity's acclaimed Santa Fe police chief, Kevin Kerney is back-with his estranged son. Two bodies have been found in a burned building. One is a missing person from Kerney's cold case files. The other is a more recent homicide. Both will lead father and son into a vast network of crime...and the darkest places of the soul.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #270104 in Books
• Published on: 2003-08-05
• Released on: 2003-08-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Amazon.com Review
Santa Fe Police Chief Kevin Kerney never solved the disappearance of Anna Maria Montoya 11 years ago. Then her remains are discovered in the ruins of an abandoned fruit stand in Lincoln County, along with the charred corpse of John Humphrey, whose killer set the fire that revealed Montoya's final resting place. The deputy sheriff investigating Humphrey's murder is Clayton Istee, the estranged son Kerney only recently learned he had. Meanwhile Kerney investigates Montoya's possible ties to a modeling agency that may be a front for a prostitution ring catering to VIPs, Istee focuses on the connection between his murder victim and an illegal gambling operation in rural southern New Mexico. By the time the author ties the parallel but seemingly unrelated investigations together in this intricately plotted thriller, the two lawmen--father and son--have begun to develop a personal as well as a professional relationship, which will likely flower in future outings in this popular series. --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly
Smooth writing, well-drawn characters and several neat plot twists distinguish the seventh Kevin Kerney novel from Anthony Award-nominee and former deputy sheriff McGarrity (Tularosa). Never losing sight of his people in the forensic detail, the author skillfully makes us want to know what happens next without unnecessary violence or contrivance. When two murder victims turn up after a fire in an abandoned fruit stand on a rural highway, Kerney, now the police chief of Sante Fe, N.Mex., takes a personal interest in the case. One blackened corpse is a John Doe, stabbed three times, who is soon identified as a homeless Vietnam vet. The other remains belong to a 29- year-old college student, Anna Marie Montoya, who disappeared 11 years before. As it happens, Kerney was involved in the search for the missing Anna Marie. Investigating the John Doe is Kerney's estranged son, Clayton Istee, now a deputy sheriff for the Lincoln County (N.Mex.) police, whose mother was a full-blooded Mescalero Apache. Clayton, a sympathetic character struggling to support a wife and two small kids, eventually finds himself in charge of a task force looking into a much more complex crime. Kerney would like to effect a reconciliation between himself and his son, but the process proves awkward for them both. McGarrity keeps the parallel plots moving nicely along toward a rational solution. This is an exceptionally intelligent, humane mystery in a series that deserves a wide readership.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Kevin Kerney, Santa Fe chief of police, solves yet another mystery in the latest entry in McGarrity's entertaining series (following Under Color of Law). As McGarrity's fans have come to expect, an intriguing set of circumstances leads Kerney and a well-realized cast of secondary characters around New Mexico until the bad guys are caught and justice is served. Clayton, Kerney's adult half-Apache son and a recent addition to the series, provides a new depth to the plot. Although they have only recently met, Clayton, also a police officer, has conflicted feelings about his almost-legendary law-enforcement father. When they must work together to solve the murders of a homeless Vietnam veteran and a woman who had disappeared from Santa Fe ten years earlier, tensions between them add nicely to the complexity of the story. Compared with the other titles in the series, this entry is a bit flat, with less of the magic of New Mexico in evidence, but fans will not be disappointed as McGarrity further develops his continuing characters into possibly the most well rounded in any current mystery series. Ann Forister, Roseville P.L., CA
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Best writer of the genre working today
For the legion of readers hooked on Michael McGarrity's crime fiction series featuring Kevin Kerney,it's going to be a great summer. The seventy installment in the highly anticipated series is on the shelves and it was worth the wait.
The setting for the novel is southern New Mexico with it deserts and mountains that provide a breathtaking diversity of geographical wonders equal to any in the United States. Kerney is back as the Police Chief of Santa Fe and happily involved with his wife in plans to build a ranch house on property he bought after receiving a windfall inheritance. Despite inevitable problems associated with his wife, an Army office, being stationed in Kansas, pregnant, and not able to visit Kerney as often as either would like, Kerney is settled into a routine of police work typical to a tourist oriented town. It is, all in all, not bad duty for a career police officer with a bum leg. Not bad duty that is until his estranged son, A Deputy Sheriff in rural Lincoln County, is called to investigate an abandoned fruit stand fire that reveals the bodies of an itinerant Vietnam veteran and a Santa Fe woman that has been missing for eleven years. While the circumstances involving the deaths are suspect they appear to be unrelated until the subsequent investigation by Kerney and Deputy Clayton Istees, his son with an attitude, not only begin to converge but the discovery of two additional bodies leads the reader into a web of intrigue and mystery. The story leads the reader into the world of drug trafficking, illegal gambling, political intrigue, murder, and prostitution that reaches beyond southern New Mexico into California, Colorado,and Texas. The result is a crime thriller by who may be the best writer of the genre working today.
In his trademark style of believable characters and narrative combined with an authentic southwestern setting, McGarrity has again demonstrated his unequaled grasp of the Southwest landscape both physically and culturally. His sense of place, inhabitants, and police procedure is meticulous and a must read for mystery fans.

Kevin Kerney is back!
The real Kevin Kerney is back from the irreality of his previous case UNDER THE COLOR OF LAW. For the first time McGarrity splits the story between two cops: Chief Kevin Kerney of Santa Fe and his newly revealed son, Deputy Clayton Istee, 150 miles apart. New and old deaths are gradually interwoven in parallel to the reluctant yet beautifully described reconcilement of these two strangers. This is as much a Big Gamble for the two strong and silent men as are the casinos that figure in the scandalous plot. Maybe they will develop into a famous duo like Hillerman's Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee. Clayton may be a needed addition in the series because, with an entire police department now at his beck, Chief Kerney will have a hard time doing his old lonesome investigations that made his reputation as a maverick lawman.

McGarrity's stories are not hidden clue mysteries a la Poirot; rather they are dogged police procedurals firmly driven by vivid local color. Here Kerney and Istee must tread carefully, from opposite ends, through personal, ethnic, and political, as well as gambling, sexual, and jurisdictional, minefields. It is McGarrity's ability to write believable plots and personalities that "feel real and right" that makes him a master, and this may be his best. It's curious how some publishers overly rely on spell checkers and miss homonyms; here Dutton drops occasional prepositions.

Kerney & Son
Michael McGarrity has been writing these Kevin Kerney novels for some time now, with the main character, a New Mexico cop, shifting between jobs as the series progresses. For a while he was essentially a private eye, and for a while he was a state cop; now he's the chief of police of Santa Fe. In the last book he found out that he's also a father, by way of a soap opera stype revelation that an old girlfriend had become pregnant by him but never told him. The girlfriend was a Mescalero Apache, and raised their son as an Indian on the reservation. He went into law enforcement, and now works in Lincoln County, a hundred and fifty miles away from his father.

In the current installment, there's a fire at an abandoned fruit stand in Lincoln County, and the son, Clayton Istee, is tasked to investigate when bodies are discovered inside the building. One turns out to be a homeless vet who had been gambling and amassed a small roll of cash, while the other's a young woman who's been missing for more than a decade. Since the young woman was from Santa Fe, the investigation into her death is passed on to Kerney, giving him and his son time to converse about life, though they do their best to dodge the subject.

I will agree with the one person who complained about the ending: it was a bit anti-climactic. Other than that I enjoyed the book, and think it's one of McGarrity's better books. I would recommend it.