Nothing But Trouble: A Kevin Kerney Novel (Kevin Kerney Novels) [Hardcover]

Michael McGarrity (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 29, 2005 | Series: Kevin Kerney Novels

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 a road near an isolated border crossing, a federal undercover investigation into immigrant smuggling, the search for a fugitive from military justice hiding somewhere in Europe, and Johnny Jordan's troublesome behavior ensure that nothing goes as planned.

As separate investigations embroil Kerney and Sara in circumstances that will forever changes their lives, Kerney must care for Patrick while Sara plays a dangerous game of Pentagon politics. Packed with family secrets, international intrigue, and memorable characters, this is McGarrity's most ambitious and involving novel to date, traveling an accelerating arc from Santa Fe to the desert grasslands and mountains of the Bootheel, the most secret levels of the Pentagon, a resort town on the coast of Ireland, and back to an adrenaline-charged climax on a desolate landing strip a few miles north of the Mexican border.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Returning from 2004's Slow Kill, stoic Sante Fe police chief Kevin Kerney receives an unexpected visit from Johnny Jordan, a childhood friend and now cantankerous former rodeo pro, who convinces Kerney to serve as a technical adviser in the shooting of a local western film. Eager for a break, Kerney heads to the location in southwestern Bootheel with his lovely wife, Army Lt. Col. Sara Brannon, and his young son, Patrick, in tow. But what starts out as a working vacation in this seventh Kerney outing quickly detours into a bloody crime scene when the body of an undercover Border Patrol agent is dumped onto Highway 81. In no time, U.S. Customs joins Kerney's investigation into a possible illegal immigrant and drug smuggling operation. Meanwhile, Sara's army job unexpectedly takes her to Ireland where she must track down and seize the notorious George Spalding, a gemstone smuggler and wartime deserter. McGarrity focuses on the details of the settings and on the characters' tactical maneuvers career- and parenting-wise. The result is slightly amplified sleuthing, deftly swapped out at surprising moments to the POV of the bad guys, and with fine but low-grade intensity.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

The title of this latest in the Kevin Kerney series misses the point entirely. Yes, many cop novels, especially those veering toward noir, are about nothing but trouble, but McGarrity's series--at least since Kerney became Santa Fe chief of police and married career army officer Sarah--has been about all sorts of things besides trouble: domestic life in a long-distance marriage and the joys and frustrations of middle-age parenting, for example. McGarrity's remarkable eye for detail, always the hallmark of his series, remains so, whether the hero is choosing a day-care facility or working a stakeout. This time the action is split between Sarah tracking an army defector in Ireland--a story begun in Slow Kill (2004)--and Kerney serving as a consultant on a movie about rodeo competitors. There's plenty of trouble on both fronts, of course, but McGarrity never loses sight of the everyday, even in the heat of battle. Longtime fans of the series may yearn for some of the edginess of the early installments, but that's how it goes with life--either too much excitement or not enough. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 14 and up
  
• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Dutton Adult; First Printing edition (December 29, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 052594916X
• ISBN-13: 978-0525949169
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #647,460 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Descriptive vs Active, January 29, 2006

By 

Charles J. Marr (Cambridge Springs, Pa USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Nothing But Trouble: A Kevin Kerney Novel (Kevin Kerney Novels) (Hardcover)

Mc Garrity seems to be moving in the direction of local description ala Hillerman or Burke as he moves his principal character out of Santa Fe to actions in the bootheel of New Mexico. As a consultant to a film company being funded by a questionable childhood friend, Kearny becomes involved in events which are at first unclear: is it drug smuggling, illegal aliens, something else? And who is doing it? And which government agancies are involved? Well it all gets worked out in the end - but I suspect there is another novel lurking about the friend and his murky doings. In addition, this novel could as honestly be subtitled a Kevin Kearny and Sara Brandon novel, for virtually a third of the novel deals with her efforts to resolve a mystery her husband Kearny uncovered in a previous work. The somewhat jumbled result of her success which implicates her superior's crony is a transfer to Iraq near the end of the novel, an event which leaves us hanging and begs for a sequel. So, although this is a well written and nicely plotted novel, with the main plot of the story resolved, it still leaves a bit too much hanging. By the way, early in the novel an odd, unconnected short vignette of a wealthy young woman shoplifing at art events which is very distracting. I must confess, the descriptions of the horse country and cattle ranches are gripping. Kearny's fathering touches anyone,, but I miss, I guess the outcome of the earlier novels, (Tularosa, Judas Judge, Big Gamble) just a smidge of that feeling of good triumphant at the end of a crime novel.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not much trouble -but total frustration, February 1, 2006

By 

E. Batchelder - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Nothing But Trouble: A Kevin Kerney Novel (Kevin Kerney Novels) (Hardcover)

McGarrity has solid strengths going for him as a crime novelist: he knows the stuff he writes about from personal experience (from the nitty-gritty of police work to off-the-beaten path New Mexico scenes) and best of all, he knows how to bring it all to life with a very likable hero enmeshed in gripping plots, with outstanding locales as backdrops.
Then, it is a mystery as to why in his last two books his plots and settings seem to be moving away from what used to work so successfully in the previous books (starting with Slow Kill, even the jacket art is changed to generic stuff -also missing from the recent books are those quaint hand drawn maps showing the area of action). In Slow Kill, the plot was diffused -as the story was split between NM and CA- and the California scenes were distracting and did not work very well, especially in contrast to the superb handling of settings and mood in the New Mexico part of the story. Does this have something to do with change of publisher, perhaps?
This shift in strategy is much more pronounced in Nothing but Trouble, his latest book. McGarrity has the action slowed further, and diffused over different geographic locations, from NM to Ireland, ending in Iraq. There is very little action that we care about involving Kerney (he is even contemplating retirement from being Police Chief of Santa Fe); but the good news is, about 1/3 of the way into the book we discover that there is another book burried in the middle: Kerney's wife, Lt. Col. Sara Brannon has her own adventure, with a totally separate storyline (one that got its start in Slow Kill as a Kerney case) that takes place mostly out of the country. The story involving Sara is quite interesting, with colorful and believable characters, flowing action, sustained suspense, and a gut wrenching ending with politically incorrect Sara exiled to duty in Iraq! In the meantime, back at the ranch...Kerney works as an advisor for a movie being filmed in the boothheal of NM. Very little happens to him and we don't have a satisfactory explanation for the things that do happen. The stunted descriptions of what's involved in shooting a movie on location are excruciatingly uninteresting. To top it off, the Kerney storyline is populated with borderline stereotypical characters (such as his bad boy childhood friend -as in the title of the book- and the friend's sister whose primary function in life seems to be coming on to any man -especially Kerney, of course- within shouting distance). While you read the Kerney sections, you want to scream, Who cares? But, you do feel for him when he is trying to adjust to life with their toddler son (who used to live with Sara) while Sara is away. This is not vintage Kerney territory, and we can tell that he is bewildered, and so are we. I wait for the day when Sara returns from Iraq safely and straightens all this out.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not McGarrity's best, February 8, 2011

By 

wendy - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Nothing But Trouble (Paperback)

Mr. McGarrity seemed to have trouble focusing on a storyline in Nothing But Trouble. None of the plots were fully developed, and too many questions remained dangling at the end of the book. I have enjoyed all the other Kevin Kerney novels, but this one disappointed me.