Backlands continues the story of Patrick Kerney; his ex-wife, Emma; and their young son, Matthew, shortly after the tragic battlefield death of their eldest son, CJ, at the end of World War I. Scarred by the loss of an older brother he idolized, estranged from a father he barely knows, and deeply troubled by the failing health of a mother he adores, eight-year-old Matthew is suddenly and irrevocably forced to set aside his childhood and take on responsibilities...

Retired Santa Fe police chief Kevin Kerney is horrified to learn that his horse-training partner, Riley Burke, has been murdered by an escaped prisoner, prompting Kerney to team up with his half-Apache son to hunt down the killer.

The bushwhack killing of a deputy sheriff in Lincoln County and the brutal murder of the deputy's wife in Santa Fe bring Police Chief Kevin Kerney and his Mescalero Apache son, Sergeant Clayton Istee, back together in a double homicide investigation that is soon linked to a major drug trafficking scheme and the cold-blooded slaughter of two women in Albuquerque. With few clues, no known motives, and no suspects, the investigation turns into a search...

"Santa Fe Police Chief Kevin Kerney and his wife, Lieutenant Colonel Sara Brannon, are on leave and eagerly awaiting the birth of their son when a prominent gay attorney is gunned down outside his office by an unknown assailant. Called to the crime scene and faced with scanty evidence and no apparent motive, Kerney directs his chief of detectives to delve into the victim's personal and professional life, a decision that ultimately leads to a SWAT...

McGarrity's novels keep getting richer as they change focus slightly with each new publisher. This novel, the fifth in the series, is the first to be issued by Dutton, McGarrity's third publisher; it's also the most personal book of the series, with Kerney, Deputy Chief of the New Mexico State Police, now married to career U.S. Army officer Lt. Col. Sara Brannon and about to become a millionaire by selling the huge tract of land he inherited in Hermit's...

In this complex tale of greed and revenge, best-selling author Michael McGarrity shrewdly blends riveting action with magnificent southwestern scenery. Serpent Gate portrays former Santa Fe policeman Kevin Kerney in a perilous struggle against corrupt officers, New Mexico politicians, and a deadly enemy from the past. Recruited for the State police by the new chief, Kerney searches the mountainous countryside for a patrolman's killer. Quickly solving...

When a U.S. ambassador's wife is found murdered in her palatial home, Santa Fe police chief Kevin Kerney makes the case his top priority. But before the investigation even gets off the ground, Kerney is railroaded by an FBI team acting under the cloak of national security. Now, as Kerney watches from the sidelines, the crime scene is sanitized, witnesses disappear, and the case is cleared with trumped-up evidence that Kerney just can't buy. No amount...

"Detective Clayton Istee investigates New Mexico borderland killings by an elusive Mexican assassin with ties to a drug cartel. In Michael McGarrity's final, propulsive Kevin Kerney novel, the nightmare of the Mexican drug wars spills across the border with the discovery of a couple in a Las Cruces hotel, scalped with their throats cut. Because of the unusual MO, Detective Clayton Istee suspects that the murders are drug related, but a lack of evidence...

When Santa Fe police chief Kevin Kerney finds the dead body of hotel magnate Clifford Spalding, he thinks he knows who to talk to, as the deceased man had known enemies. But little does Kerney know that the truth may go back 30 years to the day when Spalding's son mysteriously disappeared.

"Retired police chief Kevin Kerney returns--this time as the prime suspect in a brutal cold-case murder. A long-unsolved mystery gets a grim new break when the bones of Kim Ward are unearthed in Las Cruces, New Mexico, forty-five years after her disappearance. Suspicion swiftly falls on her old college boyfriend: none other than retired police chief Kevin Kerney. The chief's hopes of clearing his name look bleak in the face of damning evidence compiled...