You are here: Michael McGarrity > Books > Serpent Gate
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
Synopsis:
Mountainair, New Mexico. The very name conjures up the clean air, the foothills, the gorgeous mountains of the Southwest. Some would say this is God's country. It's also Kevin Kerney's, especially when crimes like rape and cop murder intrude on the outwardly idyllic setting.
It was opening night of the annual town rodeo six months ago when Patrolman Paul Gillespie left the calf-roping finals, headed toward the police station, and was killed by person or persons unknown. Nobody much is talking, at least not to Kerney, but Kerney suspects that one man, Robert Cordova, a schizophrenic, saw something that memorable night. Why, for instance, does Cordova seem obsessed with rape, and what about his ramblings on the subject of Serpent Gate? And what roles, if any, should the possibly imaginary Addie and veterinarian Nita Lassiter play in Kerney's investigation?
Murder and its aftermath, which are reflected on a small scale in Mountainair, play themselves out against a much glitzier backdrop in upmarket Santa Fe, where priceless art disappears from the governor's office and a beautiful young woman dies a quick and violent death in a millionaire's mansion. While monitoring Mountainair, Kerney, now deputy chief of the State Police, returns to Santa Fe to take on an old nemesis.
Restless, thinking perhaps too often of a woman who is, for him, off-limits, Kerney accepts the challenge. With his love of the land, his knowledge of police tactics and the criminal mind, his raw courage and tenaciousness, Kerney heads toward a showdown with his enemy..
"Kerney pushed the car hard through Abo Pass at the north edge of the Los Pinos Mountains. It was a sixty mile drive to Socorro and a large part of the trip bordered the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge, which straddled both sides of the Rio Grande. With the mountains behind him, the rangeland - so vast the river was a hazy promise in the distance - opened into miles of uninhabited space coloured in sepia brown and dull grey against a creamy blue sky."
"The raw Arctic wind kept the temperature well below freezing, and the branches of the pinion and juniper trees cracked like gunshots as they snapped under the weight of the snow. ... without warning the ridge sheared off revealing a granite monolith standing in the middle of a narrow gorge ... Kerney guessed the monolith to be fifty feet long ... a slender ledge ran along the length of the monolith. Above the ledge, at about the chest height of a small man, a duplicate of the serpent on Pop Shaffer's fence had been chiseled in the stone. It was surrounded by images of birds, fish, and other symbols, including a horned demon."
"Serpent Gate" 1998
Location map |
|
Interactive maps -
click on a place name for the link |
|
|
|
A BRIEF HISTORY OF MOUNTAINAIR The AT&SF Railway built through Abo Pass, and the railroad led to the beginning of Mountainair. When the AT&SF began construction of the "Belen Cut-off", a Kansas man, Colonel E. C. Manning, located a townsite along the proposed right-of-way. The incorporators of Mountainair were Colonel Manning, John Corbett, and perhaps a former Kansas official named Stober. W. F. Bartell opened the first business, a grocery, in 1903. In 1907-08, with steel rails now leading on west, as well as back to Midwest and eastern markets, settlers began to arrive and file on the land. They built dugouts and houses from the abundance of pine from the nearby Manzanos. Some newcomers (just as the Spanish-Mexican farmers and Pueblo Indians had done in the past) planted beans and corn. The town boomed and Mountainair boasted of being the "Pinto Bean Capital of the World." The droughts of the late 40's and 50's as well as economic factors caused the once numerous farms to be abandoned or sold. The livestock industry then began to flourish in this area with ranching still a main business activity today. The success of the automobile led to the paving of U. S. 60 which bends gently into Broadway, the main street of Mountainair. Garages and service stations sprang up, along with restaurants, cafes, hotels and motels. The day of the traveler and sightseer had arrived. John W. Corbett, co-founder of Mountainair, saw the immediate vicinity had much to interest touring Americans. The mountains, mesas, red sandstone bluffs, and arid plains were scenic wonders, not to mention the long-abandoned Indian pueblos and Spanish mission ruins of Gran Quivira, Abo, and Quarai. In order to preserve one of these ancient monuments, Corbett and W. McCoy purchased the land where Quarai was situated and deeded it to the State. The State eventually deeded Quari and Abo to the U. S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service. Now, Gran Quivira, Quarai, and Abo are all a part of what is known as the "Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument. Thousands of people visit these ruined "cities", and Mountainair proudly took the title, "Gateway to Ancient Cities." |
|
|
|
The Spanish returned to New Mexico, in 1692 but the Socorro area remained empty. By the late 18th Century, officials in Santa Fe began planning the resettle. This was to protect the trail from Santa Fe to Chihuahua, Mexico. The Apache people were making travel through this area very dangerous -- the Chihuahua trail was already known as La Jornada del Muerto...the Trail of the Dead Man or Journey of Death. Socorro is a fertile land. There is a very large spring at the base of the mountains which then, and now provides an abundant water supply.
Today, the school remains one of the state's leading centers for education and research. |
On
an expedition to investigate the Salinas district in 1853, Maj.
J. H. Carleton came upon Abó at dusk. "The tall ruins,"
he wrote, "standing there in solitude, had an aspect of sadness
and gloom..The cold wind..appeared to roar and howl through the
roofless pile like an angry demon." Carleton recognized the
remains as a Christian church, but didn't know that the "long
heaps of stone, with here and there portions of walls projecting
above the surrounding rubbish," marked the remains of a large
pueblo. MORE
The
Pueblo of Sandia Petroglyph Project
by:
Estella Tsethlikai and Domingo
Otero
The project goal was to record all the
rock art at Piedras Las Mercadas which is one of the many sites
at Petroglyph Monument. The Monument is on the fast-growing west
side of Albuquerque and is encroached upon and threatened by nearby
housing developments. Our goal is also to record all petroglyphs
systematically and thoroughly for inclusion in a computer database.
ReviewsBookBrowser
Review: In Mountainair, New Mexico, special state police officer Kevin Kerney investigates the local murder of a police officer. The only possible lead in the case is a psychotic, who might have witnessed the murder. Starting with the mentally ill witness, Kevin begins to piece together a story about a bad cop prone to sexual violence. As the case of the murdered cop winds down, Kerney starts to investigate the stealing of art worth over $8 million from the governor’s mansion. Governor Springer wants this case resolved quickly and quietly. As Kevin begins his investigation he finds a link between a frequent female visitor to the mansion, who has disappeared and an old enemy from south of the border. Kevin knows that if this connection leads him to the missing art, it could also lead him to a deadly confrontation with a man who kills without thinking twice. SERPENT GATE is the third Kerney mystery and like the previous two (TULAROSA and MEXICAN HAT), the novel is a tremendous southwest who-done-it. Kevin is a great character who, through his actions, helps the reader better understand the difference between justice and the law. The support cast helps propel the two investigations forward, and they dexterously blend into a fast-paced story line. Michael McGarrity is no longer a rising star because he has obviously arrived. Serpent
Gate: A stay-up-late mystery After a busted relationship and a six-month-old murder investigation he's none too proud of solving, Kevin Kerney, ex-Santa Fe detective, ex-park ranger, is hired by the Chief of the New Mexico State Police to lead the investigation into the multimillion dollar art theft at the Governor's office. The case is a political mine field, and Kerney knows that time is of the essence. Art thefts need quick closure; if not recovered in the first 48 hours, most of the art in question is never seen again. Kerney also realizes that the break-in is a political liability to the governor. He immediately takes charge. With few leads and a police force with divided loyalties, Kerney enlists the help of an old friend to comb through the Santa Fe art community. Furthermore, Kerney cannot get his mind off the murder case he recently solved, the person he arrested, and the terrible and long-buried secrets involved in the matter. When a state-trooper is gunned down along the highway, Kerney suspects a link between the two crimes. Clues are scarce, but slowly they are turning up. Stitching them together, he sees the trail pointing back to the state capitol, and to possible involvement with members of the governor's office, who has just decided that any misconduct which may have occurred in his office stays buried under the carpet; the investigation be damned. As the crime unravels, the case takes a sudden and unexpected swerve, and Kerney comes face to face with an old nemesis from south of the border, one who is looking to forward to Kerney's untimely demise. "Serpent Gate," (Scribner) Michael McGarrity's third novel in the Kevin Kerney mystery series, is the best yet, which is saying a lot. This is a stay-up-late book, tightly plotted, a complex story with a wide variety of believable characters, and McGarrity gives the reader an inside view of the procedure and politics of a police investigation. "Serpent Gate" relies less on the scenic beauty and mood of New Mexico, but that's alright. It also heavier on the suspense than the two previous Kerney mysteries, showing off impressive storytelling skills. He's a very talented writer who shows no signs of slacking off. Word of mouth and hand-selling have brought the author a respectable following. With a new publisher and his best book yet written, a wider audience and bestsellerdom are in store for Michael McGarrity. Add "Serpent Gate" to your summer reading list. Highly recommended! |
|
|
|
|
©2000-2008 Michael McGarrity - All rights reserved. |
