MEDIA REVIEWS

Everyone Dies

By MICHAEL McGARRITY
Dutton, 2003
336 pages, $23.95

Reviewed by ANN D. ZEIGLER

How would you like to receive a string of anonymous notes saying “Everyone dies”?
Kevin Kerney is the fictional sheriff of Santa Fe County, New Mexico, and in this eighth book in the series he’s absorbed in the procedural details and the politics of tracking down the murderer of a prominent lawyer. A note turns up, containing the phrase from which the book’s title comes. Then another unrelated body turns up. And another note. Finally the frightening truth dawns on the community and the sheriff’s office—a serial killer is loose in Santa Fe. Sheriff Kerney and his deputies just don’t happen to have one other piece of information—the killer happens to be working through a hit list that ends with Kerney’s pregnant wife and Kerney himself.
The dead lawyer at the beginning is only a clue, not a motif. This book is not about hating lawyers. When I met Michael McGarrity at Murder By The Book bookstore on his recent tour, he even told me his favorite lawyer story (more on that later).
He also agreed that anyone with a particularly deep attachment to horses might want to skip this one of the Kerney series. The horse’s death is not graphic, but it is felt deeply by Kerney.
The development of motive and character in McGarrity’s books are broader and deeper than the general run of police procedural mysteries. The meticulous detail of police work is there, of course, with each technical person following a different trail, and each deputy devising and revising theories as the evidence comes in one tiny piece at a time. The background and motives of the killer are very carefully developed as the plot progresses, and the law enforcement personnel as well as other characters have great depth. And, of course, the setting is northern New Mexico, an area that both McGarrity and Kerney clearly love passionately.
McGarrity is both a former deputy sheriff of Santa Fe County, where he established the first sex crimes unit, and a former investigator for the New Mexico Public Defender’s Office. As well, he is a practicing psychotherapist working with high risk criminals. He has spent a lot of time thinking about seriously anti-social behavior, and it shows in his characters as well as in the detailed development of the police investigation.
McGarrity mostly talked with me about the law enforcement officers and prosecutors he knows. They are normal, everyday people who like their jobs and do them well. He doesn’t have much sympathy for the fictional cop as a twisted and tortured soul looking for redemption and doing a little inspired police work on the side. The ones McGarrity knows and respects choose to do the tough jobs, and go home at night to their families like the rest of us. And they show up that way in this book and in the rest of McGarrity’s Kevin Kerney series.
A Vietnam veteran, McGarrity also has a considerable respect for the American military, which shows in his drawing of Kerney’s wife, an Army lieutenant colonel who is slowly and quietly working her way through the military power structure against the tide of anti-female presumptions.
McGarrity’s favorite lawyer story? He told a prosecutor about evidence showing a certain person was the likely killer in a particularly horrific case. The prosecutor decided not to go to a grand jury without more evidence. McGarrity then wrote one of the Kevin Kerney books, which included a subplot with a set of facts very similar to the case the prosecutor turned down. The prosecutor saw McGarrity later and said, “That guy was the one in the book, wasn’t he? You were right. I went back to the file and looked at it again. I’ve gotten a warrant out for the guy. We don’t know where he is any more, but if he makes a mistake and gets pulled over in traffic, we’ll have him and we’ll do it right this time.” Why is that McGarrity’s favorite? The lawyer realized he made a mistake and fixed it instead of burying it.
McGarrity’s favorite lawyer joke? He doesn’t have one.

Ann D. Zeigler is an associate editor of The Houston Lawyer. She practices bankruptcy law at Hughes, Watters & Askanase, LLP, where she represents Chapter 7 trustees.

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