Kevin Kerney might just be the best cop currently working the mean streets of mystery fiction. As deputy chief of the New Mexico State Police, he is not tortured by the doubts, angst, alcoholism, or mixed motives that seem to overwhelm many of his fictional colleagues. His methods are rarely flashy or excessively macho, and he treats other cops of all ranks with a minimum of attitude. Author Michael McGarrity, who worked for Santa Fe's sheriff's department before retiring to write, has managed to make Kerney human without loading him with excess baggage. As we've come to realize in three previous books--Mexican Hat, Serpent Gate, and Tularosa--Kerney works as a police officer to make the money he needs to buy a cattle ranch like the one he grew up on. In Hermit's Peak, that dream comes closer to reality when a woman painter leaves Kerney a large portion of her own property on a mesa northeast of Santa Fe. McGarrity describes this land with the keen simplicity of natural poetry. Reality (in the form of a huge inheritance tax bill) darkens the picture. But the discovery of a very rare cactus plant and the unexpected arrival of Sara Brannon (the career army officer with whom Kerney had a romance in an earlier book) let in a few rays of sunlight. Meanwhile, Kerney and a tough local cop have to deal with a rape and murder, plus enough everyday crimes to keep them seriously busy without busting the boundaries of believability. --Dick Adler