Nothing But Trouble

Nothing But Trouble was average. Some good bits, but I found a lot of it fairly mundane.

The book begins with Kevin Kerney meeting up with a weird, former childhood friend who was always a bit of a con artist and hustler. The friend never grew up and out of his grifting way, and it is now his full-time lifestyle. In any case, Kearney gets roped in to some of his shenanigans which was one half of the story. Parts of that were okay, but I felt that there were more questions than answers at the summing up.

The other half of the story centered on Sara Brannon, Kerney's wife, and her Army career. I have kind of come to the conclusion that I don't really care for the Sara Brannon character. Plus, I felt like the first quarter or so of the book show more was endless cheerleading for law enforcement and the military. In this day and age when US law enforcement is literally executing US citizens on their own streets, and the US military continues to engage in endless wars of aggression, let's just say that the rah-rah stuff can get pretty annoying, the championing of. Although the dark side of all of that, both law enforcement and military, also gets exposed later in the book.

Anyway, Sara gets shipped off to Ireland on a secret assignment, and that is the part of the book I liked most. Specifically Detective Inspector Hugh Fitzmaurice. Their investigation in Dublin was quite good, and Fitzmaurice was a total stud. Unfortunately, most of the happenings related to the Irish half of the book got dropped off at the end.

And that was kind of the whole deal. There were two stories going on, and all kinds of drama with Kerney crisscrossing from northern New Mexico to far southwestern New Mexico to the eastern US. And Sara was bouncing between the eastern US, northern New Mexico, Ireland and Iraq. Just a shitload of stuff going on, and kind of a ho-hum bust at the end. It was more a weird month or so long timeline of drama in Kerney's life, with a few bits of crime and action thrown in. show less

This should really have been two books, since it includes two separate plot lines that aren't really connected. Kerney agrees to help an old but unreliable friend with a movie filming, and gets involved with a murder. Meanwhile, his wife is sent to Ireland by the military to investigate an old missing person case that she initiated at Kerney's request in an earlier episode. Her story is the more interesting because of her frustrations with the military pettiness; Joe is challenged by being a full time parent, which he doesn't handle very well. By the time the Ireland situation was resolved, it was hard to remember or care what was going on back in New Mexico.

Synopsis: Kerney meets and old friend who asks him to work on a western as a consultant and cowboy. Of course, Kerney discovers that crime is in the area and gets involved in hunting down smugglers. Meanwhile, Sara is trying to move up the chain of command, but is stymied by a hide-bound commanding officer. Her former commander is able to get her for a special mission, which takes her to Ireland.
Review: This is the best of the Kevin Kerney novels. Adding several chapters as Sara's adventures gives McGarrity room to write more twists and turns into his plot. In this case, Sara's adventures were much more interesting than Kerney's.

This is McGarrity at the top of his writing craft, and one of the most enjoyable in the Kevin Kerney saga. The counterpoint of Kerney's Army colonel wife's risky assignment overseas to his own pre-retirement consulting job on a movie production set in New Mexico is engaging and skillfully drawn.

The inside look at the movie business was interesting, and I did enjoy seeing more of Sara at work, but it felt a little like there were some unresolved things with Johnny and Julia, and the ending seemed a little too easy. I do have to say thank you to Mr. McGarrity for not killing Sara, but then, I haven't read the next in the series.