When Kevin Kerney, deputy chief of the New Mexico State Police, inherits an unexpected windfall of 6,400 acres of high-county land, the last thing he wants to think about is work. But while visiting his new property, he comes across an ailing stray dog that leads him to the butchered bones of a murder victim near the rugged mountain of Hermit's Peak. After assigning the case to his subordinates, Kerney returns to Santa Fe to spend time with a woman he cares about, Sara Brannon, a career army officer who is visiting him on holiday. But his time with Sara must wait, as he is called back to Hermit's Peak when another body is found at a remote cabin. Now, Kerney must unearth the shattering truth about his new land and follow a twisting trail of blood through the majestic landscape of the American Southwest. David Morrell bestselling author of First Blood and Double Image Michael McGarrity does for New Mexico what James Lee Burke does for Louisiana. The land is in his blood. So is crime writing. He's a natural born storyteller with a hard-earned personal knowledge of how cops work. Combine that with characters like Kevin Kerney and Sara Brannon and the multilayered plot of Hermit's Peak, and you have a winner. Michael Mcgarrity entered the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy in his forties, joining the Santa Fe Sheriff's Department. There he established the department's renowned sex-crimes unit, personally breaking many of its cases. He has also worked as a ranch hand, a corporate consultant, a college teacher, a psychotherapist, an investigator for the New Mexico Public Defender's Office, and has served in several key positions in the New Mexico Department of Health. The Anthony Award-nominated author of Tularosa, Mexican Hat, and Serpent Gate, he lives in Santa Fe with his wife and son. Chapter 1 Maj. Sara Brannon arrived at her office fifteen minutes before she was due to report to Gen. Henry Powhatan Clarke. She sorted through her mail, looking for a letter from Kevin Kerney. There was no envelope with either a New Mexico postmark or his familiar scrawl. Disappointed, Sara set the mail aside, took off her fatigue jacket, and glanced at her wristwatch. It was evening in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and she wondered if Kerney was home from work. With the demands of his job as deputy chief of the New Mexico State Police and his gloomy description of the small guest house he was renting, she doubted he spent much time at home. Both Kerney and she were working long, hard hours in pressure-cooker jobs, and camping out in less than inviting quarters. Late March in South Korea had brought a series of cloudy, dreary days that made spring seem a long way off. Sara yearned for sunshine and home. But with several months remaining on her tour of duty, it was too soon to start daydreaming. Her office desk faced a full wall of situation maps documenting all recent North Korean DMZ incursions, infiltrations, and violations. As commander of allied G-2 ground reconnaissance and intelligence units, she was directly responsible for monitoring North Korean troop activity along and inside the DMZ. Her squads had to catch whatever the electronic eyes in the sky missed. Sara routinely accompanied the patrols to assess their effectiveness and efficiency. For the last forty-six years, battle-ready armies had faced each other across a swath of rugged mountains two-and-a-half miles wide and a hundred-and-fifty miles long that cut across the Korean peninsula, keeping the zone free of any human activity except intermittent skirmishes. Once blasted by artillery, bombed and strafed by aircraft, burned and left barren by infantry, the DMZ now flourished as a nature preserve. The reforested mountains, abundant grasses, and wildflowers, the deer, brown bears, and wildcats that grazed and fed peacefully in the valleys and the high country, reminded Sara of her family's Montana sheep ranch and Kerney's still unrealized hope to return to his ranching roots in New Mexico. When G-2 had received advance notice of the itinerary for the secretary of state's South Korean visit, Sara concentrated her attention on Panmunjom, the neutral village within the DMZ fifty miles due north from Seoul. The secretary had scheduled a quick visit to the site, to be accompanied by high-ranking military and civilian dignitaries. During a series of late-night sweeps at Panmunjom, Sara had spotted the tracks and scat of a Korean wildcat. On a subsequent patrol, under a full moon, she caught sight of the animal, an adult male about the size of an American cougar. Through night-vision binoculars, she watched it lope quickly across the cleared area around the village and move on. Two nights before the secretary of state's arrival, she saw the animal again on the same traverse. Halfway across the clearing the big cat froze, turned to catch a downwind breeze coming from the village, reversed direction, and quickly retreated. Whatever startled the wildcat