Mexican Hat (Hardcover, 1st ed)

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