Customer Reviews

The Big Gamble (Kevin Kerney Series)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

For the legion of readers hooked on Michael McGarrity's crime fiction series featuring Kevin Kerney,it's going to be a great summer. The seventy installment in the highly anticipated series is on the shelves and it was worth the wait.
The setting for the novel is southern New Mexico with it deserts and mountains that provide a breathtaking diversity of geographical wonders equal to any in the United States. Kerney is back as the Police Chief of Santa Fe and happily involved with his wife in plans to build a ranch house on property he bought after receiving a windfall inheritance. Despite inevitable problems associated with his wife, an Army office, being stationed in Kansas, pregnant, and not able to visit Kerney as often as either would like, Kerney is settled into a routine of police work typical to a tourist oriented town. It is, all in all, not bad duty for a career police officer with a bum leg. Not bad duty that is until his estranged son, A Deputy Sheriff in rural Lincoln County, is called to investigate an abandoned fruit stand fire that reveals the bodies of an itinerant Vietnam veteran and a Santa Fe woman that has been missing for eleven years. While the circumstances involving the deaths are suspect they appear to be unrelated until the subsequent investigation by Kerney and Deputy Clayton Istees, his son with an attitude, not only begin to converge but the discovery of two additional bodies leads the reader into a web of intrigue and mystery. The story leads the reader into the world of drug trafficking, illegal gambling, political intrigue, murder, and prostitution that reaches beyond southern New Mexico into California, Colorado,and Texas. The result is a crime thriller by who may be the best writer of the genre working today.
In his trademark style of believable characters and narrative combined with an authentic southwestern setting, McGarrity has again demonstrated his unequaled grasp of the Southwest landscape both physically and culturally. His sense of place, inhabitants, and police procedure is meticulous and a must read for mystery fans.

The real Kevin Kerney is back from the irreality of his previous case UNDER THE COLOR OF LAW. For the first time McGarrity splits the story between two cops: Chief Kevin Kerney of Santa Fe and his newly revealed son, Deputy Clayton Istee, 150 miles apart. New and old deaths are gradually interwoven in parallel to the reluctant yet beautifully described reconcilement of these two strangers. This is as much a Big Gamble for the two strong and silent men as are the casinos that figure in the scandalous plot. Maybe they will develop into a famous duo like Hillerman's Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee. Clayton may be a needed addition in the series because, with an entire police department now at his beck, Chief Kerney will have a hard time doing his old lonesome investigations that made his reputation as a maverick lawman.

McGarrity's stories are not hidden clue mysteries a la Poirot; rather they are dogged police procedurals firmly driven by vivid local color. Here Kerney and Istee must tread carefully, from opposite ends, through personal, ethnic, and political, as well as gambling, sexual, and jurisdictional, minefields. It is McGarrity's ability to write believable plots and personalities that "feel real and right" that makes him a master, and this may be his best. It's curious how some publishers overly rely on spell checkers and miss homonyms; here Dutton drops occasional prepositions.

Michael McGarrity has been writing these Kevin Kerney novels for some time now, with the main character, a New Mexico cop, shifting between jobs as the series progresses. For a while he was essentially a private eye, and for a while he was a state cop; now he's the chief of police of Santa Fe. In the last book he found out that he's also a father, by way of a soap opera stype revelation that an old girlfriend had become pregnant by him but never told him. The girlfriend was a Mescalero Apache, and raised their son as an Indian on the reservation. He went into law enforcement, and now works in Lincoln County, a hundred and fifty miles away from his father.

In the current installment, there's a fire at an abandoned fruit stand in Lincoln County, and the son, Clayton Istee, is tasked to investigate when bodies are discovered inside the building. One turns out to be a homeless vet who had been gambling and amassed a small roll of cash, while the other's a young woman who's been missing for more than a decade. Since the young woman was from Santa Fe, the investigation into her death is passed on to Kerney, giving him and his son time to converse about life, though they do their best to dodge the subject.

I will agree with the one person who complained about the ending: it was a bit anti-climactic. Other than that I enjoyed the book, and think it's one of McGarrity's better books. I would recommend it.

On a little traveled road in Lincoln County, New Mexico at the site of a burned down fruit stand, two bodies are found in the remaining rumble. One body is that of small time gambler Joseph John who recently struck it big on the reservation casino while the other corpse is that of Anne Marie Montoya, a woman who disappeared into thin air one decade ago.

The primary on the Montoya case is Santa Fe Police Chief Kevin Kerney and the man in charge of the Humphrey investigation is Deputy Sheriff Clayton Istee. Although the two men are father and son, neither knew about the relationship until recently. Clayton would prefer to forget about the relationship but when the two cases intersect in an unexpected manner, the two men are forced to work together and take a step closer to forming a relationship.

Like Tony Hillerman before him, Michael McGarrity puts the state of New Mexico on the map. His style is smooth, subtle and his storytelling abilities keep the reader in thrall, wondering what will happen next. THE BIG GAMBLE is no gamble at all for reader; it is a surefire winner for anyone who likes a fascinating police procedural.

Harriet Klausner

While this is certainly a worthy entry in the marvelous Kevin Kerney series, it's not as good as previous efforts, and mainly because there's no real "suspense" in this one; none of our characters ever really seem in trouble, until the very end, and we know how that will turn out. Aside from that though, McGarrity once again weaves an intricate plot, focusing a little more on Clayton Isee, Kerney's just-discovered son, and giving Kevin a little bit of a break. Kerney is going to have reconstructive surgery on his knee, Sara's a typical pre-natal mess, and the other cops are interesting to spend time with. Once again, a respected politician figures in the maelstrom of corruption, drugs, prostitution and murder. The victims this time are a long-missing Hispanic woman and a low-life hustler. McGarrity works the plot well, providing some early clues, but unlike his previous novels, they just aren't as intriguing. But I won't give up on McGarrity---he's been too good so far, and this one is far from mundane.

Michael McGarrity's "The Big Gamble" is a fascinating and believable police procedural vividly set in New Mexico.

Two bodies (seemingly unrelated) are discovered after a fire of dubious origin. One is an eleven-year-old cold case from Kevin Kerney's past. His estranged son is the primary for the other victim.

The plot follows the pair of investigations that eventually uncover a huge ring of gambling, prostitution, drugs, money laundering and politicians. The villains are high-ranking politicos, plus one evil gunsel.

A credible resolution that opens the possibility for continued pairing of Kerney and his son.

This seventh book in the Kevin Kerney series is just as fresh as the first---one reason being that Kerney has held various positions in New Mexico law enforcement in different locales.

Great series by a most under discovered writer.

I note that a number of the reviewers who gave this book a low rating received few indications that their reviews were helpful. Just a note to those who bag on the reviewers that you could be doing a disservice to potential readers. I mean, those guys nailed McGarrity's effort on this book. It is not that good of a work, it was not exciting, the writing was pedestrian, the prose linear, character development non-existent, the plot plodding, and the book ended with a whimper, not a bang.

Cop mystery books that regale us with police procedure do NOT have to be boring; Wambaugh's The Golden Orange, Floaters, and Finnegan's Week come to mind. Even his minor characters are more colorful and better developed than the main characters in this book.

This is not to denigrate Mr McGarrity's work (he is a published author and I am not). However, potential readers, on the basis of these reviews, might want to invest their money in other books rather than take (are you ready?) a big gamble on The Big Gamble.

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

I read this book in a single sitting. It's rarely I do that. I'm not sure how McGarrity does what he does, but he's consistent.
I notice that other reviewers appreciate the "deepening" of Kevin Kerney's personal life, but I don't. I really don't care about his wife or his kid. I care about the mystery.
Still, McGarrity is my favorite.

If you are a fan of Tony Hillerman's Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn novels which regularly serve up a cocktail of assertive storytelling, unusual mysteries, wonderful atmospheric descriptions of Southwestern geography, and accurate portrayals of Native American culture, this offering by Michael McGarrity will not slake your thirst.

Sure, The Big Gamble is set in New Mexico and one of the two protagonists is a Mescalero Apache Deputy Sheriff, but that is about as "Native American" as the story gets. The two protagonists have recently learned that they are father and son, and go to great lengths to avoid communicating with each other as they each investigates one part of the mystery surrounding to discovery of two dead bodies that were disposed of in the same place.....11 years apart. The villain(s) in the mystery are pretty obvious and the final "roundup" of the bad guys unfulfilling, almost like the writer had a certain number of pages he was obligated to complete in order to fulfill his contract and had achieved that number so he wrapped up the entire story in 4 pages.

The thing that keeps the reader engaged is the authenticity of police procedure in the gathering of forensic evidence during the parallel investigations being conducted by the duo as well as the interconnection of the plethora of crimes, ranging from gambling and prostitution to murder, that their diligence unearths.

Not a great book, but not all that bad.......Overall, an okay choice for a lazy afternoon.

Most murder mysteries end with an "Aha!" and some pleasant words about the future. This book takes you through an abbreviated version of the process of gathering enough evidence to go to trial, and then blissfully spares us the courtroom drama. The characters are wooden, much of the drama staid, and worst of all, the staging of chapter and scene is formulaic, but the action is engrossing and the writing good enough. There is little poetry in it, but a gruff sense of duty and interest in the pursuit of criminals, and then some romance/drama from the main characters to keep our interest despite never fully being resolved. For readers of urban mysteries, the change of setting to rural New Mexico might seem a shock but the basic story and the personalities required to play out its drama remain the same.