Retired Santa Fe cop Kevin Kerney (Tularosa, 1996) is working a
temporary job as a Forest Service ranger when he looks inside a
cave and finds a dazed old man whose ramblings lead him to the old
man's grandson, evidently shot to death by a cougar poacher. But
the news that Dr. Jose Padilla and his grandson Hector had called
on ranching patriarch Edgar Cox earlier that day and left a letter
Edgar doesn't want to discuss raises the stakes - as does the
shooting of Kerney's old Police Academy student, Game and Fish
warden Jim Stiles, left for dead when he goes out on his own to
follow up a tip too good to be true. Suddenly Kerney's stuck in the
middle of a gaggle of feuding Coxes: Edgar's paralyzed brother
Eugene, Eugene's rancher son Phil, Edgar's daughter Karen - all
warily circling the bones of Jose Padilla's father Luis, dead these
50 years. Even worse, Kerney's surrounded by dueling lawmen: the
boss who deputizes him to the Catron County D.A.'s office, the big
boss who wants him off the case, the dopey county sheriff whose
press release got Jim Stiles shot, and Karen Cox, who just happens
to be Catron County's newest prosecutor. It's a combination that
might make his Forest Service job even more temporary than he
thought - if a corps of demented militiamen or those poachers (even
if they didn't kill Hector Padilla, they're still out there, armed
and dangerous) don't retire him first. A bulging taco of a novel,
overstuffed with villains, old secrets, crooked cops, and bang bang
bang - but still written with a chemistry and majesty that'll make
it irresistible to Tony Hillerman fans. (Kirkus Reviews)
The hero of Tularosa returns in a compelling mystery of family secrets played out against the breathtaking Gila Wilderness of southwestern New Mexico. Kevin Kerney, the exSanta Fe chief of detectives who made his exciting debut in
Tularosa, is working as a seasonal forest ranger and banking his pay toward a small ranch. Despite the county militia's planting pipe bombs on hiking trails, Kerney looks forward to a quiet summer in the high mountains.
But the poaching of wildlife, the murder of a Mexican tourist, and the discovery of a disoriented old man in the wilderness thrust Kerney into an investigation that accelerates dangerously to a heart-stopping final confrontation.
Kerney hooks up with Jim Stiles, a young game and fish officer, to track the poacher who may also be a murderer. Their investigation leads again and again to two land-rich brothers, Edgar and Eugene Cox, who are locked in a sixty-year-old feud. Even the locals don't know how it started, and the two men aren't talking.

Kerney's effort to unravel the web of secrecy around the Cox brothers is complicated by Edgar's daughter, Karen Cox, the assistant district attorney. Kerney hopes that she wants justice done, but she clearly fears what the truth may do to her father. And as Kerney puts the puzzle together a piece at a time, someone the poacher, the murderer, or the local militia keeps trying to kill him.
Michael McGarrity, an ex-psychotherapist and Santa Fe Sheriff's Department detective, introduced Kevin Kerney in his first novel,
Tularosa. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Praise for Tularosa: "Delivers action, atmosphere, romance, and prime satisfaction."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Tularosa moves like lightning. An ex-cop, McGarrity knows what he's writing about and how to write it."--Tony Hillerman
"The action never lets up . . . [McGarrity] is a born storyteller."--Denver Post
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