Retired Santa Fe police chief Kevin Kerney is horrified to learn that his horse-training partner, Riley Burke, has been murdered by an escaped prisoner, prompting Kerney to team up with his half-Apache son to hunt down the killer.

Backlands continues the story of Patrick Kerney; his ex-wife, Emma; and their young son, Matthew, shortly after the tragic battlefield death of their eldest son, CJ, at the end of World War I. Scarred by the loss of an older brother he idolized, estranged from a father he barely knows, and deeply troubled by the failing health of a mother he adores, eight-year-old Matthew is suddenly and irrevocably forced to set aside his childhood and take on responsibilities...

Retired Sante Fe policeman Kevin Kerney looks forward to a quiet summer working for the forest service in the Gila Wilderness until he discovers a disoriented elderly man and the body of a Mexican tourist in the mountains.

Kevin Kerney takes a rare weekend off from his job as deputy chief of the New Mexico State Police to explore 6,400 acres of land he unexpectedly inherited from an old family friend, but he finds himself instead directing a multifaceted investigation when the acreage yields two dead bodies as well as an illegally clear-cut swath of woodland.

"Santa Fe Police Chief Kevin Kerney and his wife, Lieutenant Colonel Sara Brannon, are on leave and eagerly awaiting the birth of their son when a prominent gay attorney is gunned down outside his office by an unknown assailant. Called to the crime scene and faced with scanty evidence and no apparent motive, Kerney directs his chief of detectives to delve into the victim's personal and professional life, a decision that ultimately leads to a SWAT...

McGarrity's novels keep getting richer as they change focus slightly with each new publisher. This novel, the fifth in the series, is the first to be issued by Dutton, McGarrity's third publisher; it's also the most personal book of the series, with Kerney, Deputy Chief of the New Mexico State Police, now married to career U.S. Army officer Lt. Col. Sara Brannon and about to become a millionaire by selling the huge tract of land he inherited in Hermit's...

Former Santa Fe detective Kevin Kerney probes the murder of a friend's son, an officer on a missile base in New Mexico. Kerney teams up with with the woman leading the base's own investigation and they uncover a racket, men smuggling antique weapons and gold coins across the border.

"Retired police chief Kevin Kerney returns--this time as the prime suspect in a brutal cold-case murder. A long-unsolved mystery gets a grim new break when the bones of Kim Ward are unearthed in Las Cruces, New Mexico, forty-five years after her disappearance. Suspicion swiftly falls on her old college boyfriend: none other than retired police chief Kevin Kerney. The chief's hopes of clearing his name look bleak in the face of damning evidence compiled...

After years away on the pro rodeo circuit, Johnny Jordan struts into Santa Fe to ask his boyhood friend, Santa Fe Police Chief Kevin Kerney, to serve as a technical advisor on a contemporary Western movie to be filmed along the Mexican border. Kerney agrees and plans a working vacation on location, in a remote area of the state known as the Bootheel, with his wife, Lt. Colonel Sara Brannon, and their three-year-old son, Patrick. But, a dead man on...

"Retired police chief Kevin Kerney returns--this time as the prime suspect in a brutal cold-case murder. A long-unsolved mystery gets a grim new break when the bones of Kim Ward are unearthed in Las Cruces, New Mexico, forty-five years after her disappearance. Suspicion swiftly falls on her old college boyfriend: none other than retired police chief Kevin Kerney. The chief's hopes of clearing his name look bleak in the face of damning evidence compiled...