Death Song

November 26, 2007
McGarrity’s solid eighth police procedural to feature Santa Fe County, N.Mex., police chief Kevin Kerney (after 2005’s Nothing but Trouble
) opens on a deceptively quiet note as Sgt. Clayton Istee of the Lincoln County sheriff’s office breaks in the department’s newest member, Deputy Tim Riley. A short time later, after someone blasts Riley in the face with a shotgun, Istee and Kerney must dig into Riley’s past to identify possible murder suspects. The discovery of Riley’s wife, Denise, with her throat slashed in a horse trailer complicates the investigation: autopsies reveal that Denise was three months pregnant and that Riley had a vasectomy. The author does a good job describing the characters and the locale, but some readers may be disappointed that a mundane if realistic piece of evidence fingers the killer.

In the latest Kevin Kerney story, set in the Southwest, a sheriff's deputy and his wife are murdered, the former in Lincoln County, the latter in Santa Fe. Police chief Kerney wants to solve the crime before he retires in two weeks and ends up working with his son, Clayton Istee, to figure out who committed the murders, and two others, and whether or not they're connected. The story doesn't have much action, but George Guidall does a wonderful job as he describes the glorious natural surroundings. He also brings the characters to life, physically and psychologically, and savors the language, the atmosphere, and the dry humor of the story. For Kerney fans this is a winner, and new readers will be looking for more. S.S.R. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine