Serpent Gate (Abridged, Downloadable audio file, Abridged edition)

Mountainair, New Mexico. The very name conjures up the clean air, the foothills, the gorgeous mountains of the Southwest. Some would say this is God's country. It is also Kevin Kearney's, especially when crimes like rape and cop murder intrude on the outwardly idyllic natural setting.

It was opening night of the annual town rodeo six months ago when Patrolman Paul Gillespie left the calf-roping finals, headed toward the police station, and was killed by person or persons unknown. Nobody much is talking, at least not to Kerney, but Kerney suspects that one man, Robert Cordova, a schizophrenic, saw something that memorable night.

Murder and its aftermath, which are reflected on a small scale in Mountainair, play themselves out against a much glitzier backdrop in Santa Fe; to take on an old nemesis.

Serpent Gate brilliantly confirms the literary power of one of the most talked-about new voices in the crime writing arena. Both spellbinding entertainment and a deeply moving portrait of the American Southwest, the novel is sure to win author Michael McGarrity many new fans.