Rating: 
Summary: Worth It!
Review: Billed as one in the "Kevin Kerney" series, this novel is really more about his estranged son Deputy Sheriff Clayton Istee. While it could be read as a stand alone novel, potential readers would be wise to go back to the beginning and work their way forward to this one. I am deliberately ignoring the back-story involving Clayton and Kevin, as well as numerous other issues which continue in this novel, so as not to run the series for new readers.As this novel opens, a fire is burning in the predawn light of Lincoln County, New Mexico. Deputy Sheriff Clayton Istee watches the fire fade out from the efforts of the volunteer firefighters and is there for the discovery of one and then a second body. Both bodies are found in the cellar rubble of an abandoned fruit stand by the side of the highway and at what is left of one body makes it clear that the body has been there for a very long time. Clayton Istee left the Mescalero Tribal Police and joined the Sheriff's Department three months ago and Sheriff Hewitt wants Clayton to work the case, his first major case in the Sheriff's Department Before long, it is determined that one of the bodies is female and she is identified as Anna Marie Montoya who has been missing for over ten years. As Clayton investigates, he has no choice but to deal with his father, Kevin Kerney, now Chief of Police for Santa Fe, New Mexico. Kerney was the lead investigator for the case ten years ago and was never able to find her or find a lead despite extensive investigation. She vanished without a trace until now. With the identification of the second body, links to the past and present begin to connect leading Clayton and Kerney towards a possible reconciliation as well as towards a showdown with corrupt politicians and criminal enterprises that stretch across state boundaries. As in his other novels, this novel is told from the omnipresent narrator viewpoint, shifting back and forth constantly between the various characters. The characters of Clayton Istee and Kevin Kerney are further developed, but at considerable distance. A lack of emotion even in scenes depicting complex emotion as well as a stiffness in the writing remains for this reader regarding the author, but as the novels begin to stack up, one that is becoming more and more acceptable. Every author has his or her own unique style or idiosyncrasy to the writing and this apparently is Michael McGarrity's own style. While somewhat lacking in the emotionality department, the author has a real talent for bring the culture and landscape of Southwestern New Mexico alive for the reader. Like others in this series, he has once again created a complex twisting mystery full of intrigue and deceit that keeps the reader turning the page and well worth your time.
Rating: 
Summary: Best writer of the genre working today
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Another Winner
Review: I read this book in a single sitting. It's rarely I do that. I'm not sure how McGarrity does what he does, but he's consistent.
I notice that other reviewers appreciate the "deepening" of Kevin Kerney's personal life, but I don't. I really don't care about his wife or his kid. I care about the mystery.
Still, McGarrity is my favorite.
Rating:
Summary: Michael McGarrity-- finest of our Southwest mystery writers?
Review: I'd say yes, based on his last three works, The Judas Judge, Under the Color of Law, and his latest, The Big Gamble. A unique aspect of his work is that he's one of the few Southwest mystery/police-procedural writers who writes primarily from an Anglo perspective--and unapologetically so. His protagonist, Kevin Kerney, likely modeled after himself (both are former Santa Fe, NM, law officers, both Irish, both have alliterative names), comes across as a kind of 21st century New Mexican Philip Marlowe. And like Raymond Chandler brilliantly evoked thirties LA, McGarrity flawlessly brings to life turn-of-the-century New Mexico, esp. Santa Fe. There's a kind of slightly faded magic about New Mexico (aka, "Land of Enchantment") that McGarrity nails: nouveaux riches Santa Fean carpetbaggers cheek by jowl with struggling Native American reservation denizens; Anglo art-colony poseurs rubbing up against Hispanic hustlers; Los Alamos science nerds clashing with Española low riders--all set against the backdrop of the mesmerizing desert Southwest. Thus, the countryside and its motley populace (rightly) becomes almost a second protagonist. I especially like this story because it delicately probes Kerney's problematic relationship with his estranged son, Clayton, a half-breed that he only recently discovered was his but who has followed his father's footsteps into a career in New Mexican law enforcement. As they are thrown together to try to solve a curiously linked contemporary homicide and decade-old murder, they slowly develop a grudging (esp. on Clayton's part) respect for each other. Meanwhile, Kerney must navigate the perilous shoals of his relationship with the love of his life, Sara, a career Air Force officer. I won't give the plot away, but it involves some high-level New Mexican politicians involved in some rather nasty goings-on. If there are a few missteps (a rather ideological rant against political conservatism; a somewhat illogical flare-up between McGarrity and Sara), the novel nevertheless represents some of the finest police procedural work being written today. Throw in the glories of the American Southwest, and you've got a recipe for some very engaging reading.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: I've loved all of the Michael McGarrity books except Under the Color of the Law. The Big Gamble is a wonderful addition to the series. I liked the inclusion of Clayton and his family with Clayton having a bigger role in the book. I thought Sara could have been included more and with less gripping on her part. For a tough Army officer, she set a record whining. I can't wait for the next book.
Rating: 
Summary: As Always Excellent
Review: McGarrity has the facility of making you feel you know and care for his characters. As he has done in the first 6 books he crafts and interesting and thououghly enjoyable yarn with enough twists and turns to keep you ingrossed.
Rating:
Summary: As Always Excellent
Review: McGarrity has the facility of making you feel you know and care for his characters. As he has done in the first 6 books he crafts and interesting and thououghly enjoyable yarn with enough twists and turns to keep you ingrossed.
Rating:
Summary: By the book police procedure
Review: McGarrity may have solved his "Jack Ryan problem". His hero promoted out of the action, grows closer to his son, a young Indian deputy, and numerous new characters are introduced. The procedure is detailed and the action a little short, but this is a fine addition to an outstanding series.
Rating:
Summary: Kerney & Son
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Another late night page turner!
Review: Michael McGarrity has written another great Kevin Kerney mystery. This time, Kerney is drawn into a case being worked by his newly discovered son, Clayton Istee. A fire that destroys an abandoned roadside fruit stand reveals two corpses-one new, one old, both murdered. The older victim turns out to be a "cold case" of Kerney's. McGarrity successfully braids the two cases together, allowing evidence to be discovered in a totally natural and believable way. He also does a great job of quietly describing the bundle of human contradictions that is modern New Mexico, and realistically portraying the tensions that exit between Native American, Hispanic and Anglo. I started reading this one late; which was a mistake because I literally couldn't put it down until I finished it! Good thing I didn't have to work the next day.
I also get the feeling that as McGarrity continues to write, Clayton Istee is going to come to the forefront of his New Mexico mysteries and Kerney will take a "back burner" position. While I find Istee an intriguing character, and worthy of being the focus of a great read, I hope Kevin Kerney continues to inhabit Michael McGarrity's fictional world.
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