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With his dazzling debut, Tularosa, Michael McGarrity was hailed a born storyteller (Denver Post)--and introduced readers to a memorable new hero, ex-Santa Fe chief of detectives Kevin Kerney. Now, featuring his vivid feel for the southwest, McGarrity's second gripping novel hurls Kerney onto the toughest case of his life.

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 Kerney into an investigation that will carry him back in time to a sixty-year-old feud between two land-rich brothers, Edgar and Eugene Cox.

Enlisting young state game and fish officer Jim Stiles to help solve the crimes, Kerney slowly uncovers evidence connecting the ruthless Cox feud with another suspicious death--and the radical actions of New Mexico's present-day county militia. But new assistant district attorney Karen Cox--Edgar's alluring daughter--is torn between hiding her father's long-buried secret and helping Kerney find the truth. Now someone wants Kerney dead--and the deeper he investigates, the more he may be digging his own grave.