Author Information
Michael McGarrity's Latest Book

Newest Release

  • Bibliography:
    19 Books (2 Series)
  • First Book:
    April 1996
  • Latest Book:
    May 2025
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Full Series List in Order

Hard Country

1 - Hard Country (May-2012)
2 - Backlands (May-2014)
3 - The Last Ranch (May-2016)

A Kevin Kerney Novel

1 - Tularosa (Apr-1996)
2 - Mexican Hat (May-1997)
3 - Serpent Gate (Jun-1998)
4 - Hermit's Peak (Jun-1999)
5 - The Judas Judge (Jun-2000)
6 - Under the Color of Law (Jul-2001)
7 - The Big Gamble (Jul-2002)
8 - Everyone Dies (Aug-2003)
9 - Slow Kill (Sep-2004)
10 - Nothing But Trouble (Dec-2005)
11 - Death Song (Jan-2008)
12 - Dead or Alive (Jan-2009)
13 - Residue (Oct-2018)
14 - Head Wounds (Nov-2020)

Book List in Order: 19 titles



  • For two years, Kevin Kerney has lived alone on a small ranch, nursing the wounds that retired him from the Santa Fe police department. But Kerney's solitude is shattered when his ex-partner, Terry Yazzi, arrives one afternoon to plead for Kerney's he...



  • Taking a job as a seasonal forest ranger in New Mexico's Gila Wilderness, Kevin Kerney is looking forward to a quiet summer high in the mountains. But the murder of a Mexican tourist, and the discovery of a disoriented old man in the wild, thrust Ker...



  • After receiving a call from the newly appointed chief of the New Mexico State Police, ex-Santa Fe chief of detectives Kevin Kerney is thrown into an investigation of a small-town copkilling no one has been able to solve. His only lead: a homeless sch...



  • When Kevin Kerney receives an unexpected windfall--6,400 acres of high--country land outside Las Vegas, New Mexico--the last thing he wants to think about is police work. But while visiting his new property, he comes upon an ailing stray dog that lea...



  • In a remote New Mexico campground, six people are killed in an apparently senseless murder spree. Deputy State Police Chief Kevin Kerney suspects the slayings weren't random at all--but rather a calculated plot to eliminate one high-profile victim: r...



  • Newly installed Santa Fe police chief Kevin Kerney receives a deadly welcome when Phyllis Terrell, a U.S. ambassador's wife, is brutally stabbed to death in her home. Before Kerney can even investigate, an FBI antiterrorism team takes over the case--...



  • Two bodies have been found in the burning wreckage of an abandoned fruit stand. One, the recent victim of a stabbing. The other, a woman who disappeared from Santa Fe eleven years ago. Now Police Chief Kevin Kerney has to reopen a cold case from the ...



  • Santa Fe police chief Kevin Kerney is called to the crime scene of a prominent attorney gunned down by an unknown assailant. With few clues and no motive for the killing, Kerney directs his detectives to delve into the victim's personal and professio...



  • Santa Fe Police Chief Kevin Kerney travels to a California ranch looking to buy some prime quarter horse breeding stock. Instead, he finds himself the prime suspect in a possible homicide when the ranch owner, Clifford Spalding, is found dead. Confro...






  • At the urging of his old friend Johnny Jordan, Santa Fe police chief Kevin Kerney takes a job as a technical adviser on a contemporary Western being filmed near the Mexican border. Joining him on his working vacation are his wife, Lieutenant Colonel ...



  • The bushwhack killing of a deputy sheriff in Lincoln County and the brutal murder of the deputy's wife in Santa Fe County bring Chief Kevin Kerney and his Mescalero Apache son, Sergeant Clayton Istee, back together. The double-homicide investigation ...



  • Living in London while his wife serves as a military attache at the American Embassy, recently retired Santa Fe Police Chief Kevin Kerney gets an early morning phone call that changes everything and sends him hurrying home to his New Mexico ranch. Ri...



  • A richly authentic epic adventure of rough-hewn men and courageous women, set in the hard country of the American Southwest frontier. Hard Country is a rare and extraordinary story of one family's struggle to settle and endure in the vast, untamed...



  • An expansive, epic tale like Philipp Meyer's "The Son," and in the wonderful storyteller vein of Larry McMurtry's "Lonesome Dove," McGarrity's "Backlands" showcases his keen eye for historical detail, awe-inspiring scenery, and the bitter harshness o...



  • The grand saga of an American ranching family continues in The Last Ranch, the final, mesmerizing book of New York Times bestseller Michael McGarrity’s gripping and richly authentic American West trilogy. When Matthew Kerney returns to his ranch...



  • Former police chief Kevin Kerney returns―this time as the prime suspect in a brutal cold-case murder investigation. Against the backdrop of the harsh desert and high mountain country of southwestern New Mexico, a high-octane quest for the truth ...



  • Clayton Istee, son of retired police chief Kevin Kerney, goes up against an elusive Mexican hitman in a mesmerizing story of murder, revenge, and redemption. Given a chance to salvage his law enforcement career, Dona Ana County Sheriff’s Detecti...



  • In the early 1960s, Ray Lansdale returns from Vietnam to his Montana home to search for his missing sister. In this gripping story, the broken lives of siblings Raymond and Barbara Lansdale are tenuously held together by their childhood fantasy o...







Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Michael McGarrity has published 19 books.

The next book by Michael McGarrity, Night in the City, will be published in May 2025.

The first book by Michael McGarrity, Tularosa, was published in April 1996.

Yes. Michael McGarrity has 2 series.