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 detective Clayton Istee catches a bizarre late-night double homicide at a Las Cruces hotel. Both victims, a man and a woman, had been scalped with their throats cut.

The murders show all the signs of a signature hit, but national and state crime data banks reveal no similar profiles. Digging into the victims’ backgrounds, Clayton discovers that six months’ prior the couple had walked out of a nearby casino with $200,000 of a high-stakes gambler’s money.

He also learns the crime had been hushed-up by an undercover federal DEA agent, who resurfaces and recruits Clayton for a dangerous mission to seize the Mexican drug lord responsible for the killings.

Thrust into the nightmare world of borderland drug wars and corrupt cops, Clayton duels with a cunning assassin poised to kill him and his family in a ferocious climax to the Kevin Kerney series that is sure to stun.

“Michael McGarrity is a master, and his latest mind-blower does not disappoint. I always rush to his work, then wait anxiously for another.” – Luis Alberto Urrea, Edgar Winner and author of The House of Broken Angels.

“Opens with a sensational double murder…McGarrity knows his territory…Sheer poetry.” – Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review