Helpful Score: 1
Another in the series about Kevin Kerney, chief of police in Santa Fe NM. I'm usually behind by a couple years in reading these police procedurals and I've yet to go back to the first for re-reading. It doesn't matter; McGarrity writes these so that you can pick up in the middle and still understand the characters without needing all the backstory. That's very refreshing in a series, so you're not either lost or wincing at the artificial tone of the infodump that's needed to catch up.
In this book, Kerney is in Paso Robles CA at a luxurious ranch looking to buy some horses when another guest at the ranch is found dead. After discovering the dead man also has connections to Santa Fe the local police take a hard look at Kerney. He of course calls his office to start them on the trail as well, and soon gets fixated on the victims ex-wife's insistence that her son, killed in Vietnam, is not really dead.
I liked the pace of the book, it kept me reading right through. I've been to most of the places described and McGarritty does a fine job of describing the scenery. But I had some problems with a few events and the time frame of the novel. A minor part was Kerney at this ranch that breeds racing quarter horses so he could buy cutting horse stock. But cutting horses are judged on cow sense, not racing ability, and there are well-known bloodlines for the best. He didn't even try the horses on cows. It was one of those minor quibbles that pulls you out of the story.
I liked how Kerney was able to call on his wife for assistance with the Army bureaucracy. It added warmth and also a subplot, as she deals with her own interesting case (unresolved in this book, so I'm assuming it continues in the next). I didn't care for the ending at all; he spends all this time working up to a denouement, and then poof, within a couple paragraphs it's wrapped up. Plus I had a hard time believing the murderer would choose to run in that fashion, especially running to that particular place.
SLOW KILL is a nice read, definitely worth it, but not McGarrity's best.
In this book, Kerney is in Paso Robles CA at a luxurious ranch looking to buy some horses when another guest at the ranch is found dead. After discovering the dead man also has connections to Santa Fe the local police take a hard look at Kerney. He of course calls his office to start them on the trail as well, and soon gets fixated on the victims ex-wife's insistence that her son, killed in Vietnam, is not really dead.
I liked the pace of the book, it kept me reading right through. I've been to most of the places described and McGarritty does a fine job of describing the scenery. But I had some problems with a few events and the time frame of the novel. A minor part was Kerney at this ranch that breeds racing quarter horses so he could buy cutting horse stock. But cutting horses are judged on cow sense, not racing ability, and there are well-known bloodlines for the best. He didn't even try the horses on cows. It was one of those minor quibbles that pulls you out of the story.
I liked how Kerney was able to call on his wife for assistance with the Army bureaucracy. It added warmth and also a subplot, as she deals with her own interesting case (unresolved in this book, so I'm assuming it continues in the next). I didn't care for the ending at all; he spends all this time working up to a denouement, and then poof, within a couple paragraphs it's wrapped up. Plus I had a hard time believing the murderer would choose to run in that fashion, especially running to that particular place.
SLOW KILL is a nice read, definitely worth it, but not McGarrity's best.
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