Dedicated Lawman Takes On Conspirators in Taut Thriller

Each new Michael McGarrity novel about New Mexico lawman Kevin Kerney is better than the last. The latest, “Under the Color of Law” (Dutton, $23.95, 273 pages), is an amazing accomplishment that combines two usually disparate crime genres: the police procedural (non-urban variety) and the government-conspiracy thriller.

He does it with intelligence and heart-pumping suspense, without skimping on either characterization or local color.

In five previous books, the author has put his thoughtful, honorable hero through enough professional and personal crises to give Job pause.

Here, he ups the ante by returning Kerney to his hometown, Santa Fe, as the new chief of police at the precise time that an FBI anti-terrorism team arrives to cover up a local homicide using any means necessary.

Worse yet, their covert activities, which include falsifying evidence, torture and murder, are sanctioned by men at the highest levels of the government.

The bad guys (and one spectacularly bad woman) are as arrogant as they are unscrupulous, and they make the mistake of underestimating Kerney’s dedication and resourcefulness.

They may have all the spy toys at their disposal--state-of-the-art surveillance devices, cutting-edge weaponry, computer tricks, even helicopters--but Kerney has a tactician’s mind, a wife whose years in the military have not been wasted, and loyal, brave friends and co-workers.

The ensuing battle to the death, and the events leading up to it, form one of the most chilling and satisfying thrillers of the year.

*

Grady Service, the hero of Joseph Heywood’s “Ice Hunter” (Lyons Press, $24.95, 294 pages) is even tougher than Kerney and has a harder head.

An ice hockey natural who gave up the sport to join the Marines and eventually pursue a rigorous, spartan existence as a conservation officer in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Service patrols the wilderness with what one might describe as an obsessive dedication.

In the course of one troublesome two-day period, his nose is broken by an addled man he’s trying to rescue, he’s attacked by a bear, and he’s shot at by a devious killer who’s trying to cover up a sinister scheme that would destroy the area’s natural beauty.

That scheme is intriguing, as is Heywood’s use of father-son relationships in explaining several character shifts. (Service changed his career plans so that he could work the same territory that his late father had patrolled. A sociopathic poacher develops just a hint of conscience when his son is slain.)

But it’s the author’s description of the unusual events that Service is forced to endure on a daily basis--some funny, some pathetic, some with elements of both--that distinguish this often compelling novel.

*

Most of Robert K. Tanenbaum’s “Enemy Within” (Pocket, $24.95, 353 pages) is the very model of a modern crime tale. Its protagonist, Butch Karp, chief assistant district attorney for New York County, is going through a rough patch.

On the home front, his teenage daughter, a hyper-linguistic prodigy who can master any language within 72 hours, is ignoring school in favor of offering succor to the city’s disturbed homeless.

Worse, she keeps finding victims of a serial killer nicknamed “the bum slasher” (a designation they’ll probably have to change for the British edition).

Meanwhile, his wife, a security company executive who has just surfed an Internet wave into a vast fortune, seems to be trying to spend it all on designer clothes and booze.

On the job, Karp’s being told to ignore signs that a much-revered cop may have purposely killed a black felon and, in a similar but separate instance, that the mugger shot to death by a wealthy friend of the governor may not have been a mugger at all.

Tanenbaum, a lawyer who’s been writing about attorneys under pressure for a while now, smoothly hopscotches the action from Karp’s moral quandaries to his wife’s excesses to his daughter’s dangerous ventures in Manhattan’s lower depths.

The characters are well-drawn. (I particularly like the fact that the daughter’s unique gift of languages is underplayed. It’s used as a part of her makeup, not a gimmick with a payoff.)

The assorted elements of the plot are nicely delineated too, a little larger than life, but not beyond the realm of possibility.

Then, suddenly, mom sobers up, defying all known facts about alcoholism. She and Karp and their daughter, together with a friendly Irish priest and--I’m not making this up--the family dog, all go on a hunt into the bowels of the city’s subway system in search of a homeless man with a penchant for making bombs.

Along the way they encounter a tribe of homicidal tunnel folk, or, as they are called, “mole people.” It’s a little like being surprised by pages out of a Vault of Horror comic book stuck near the end of a Grisham novel.

*

This week, the Library of America publishes “Dashiell Hammett: Crime Stories and Other Writings,” edited by Steven Marcus ($35, 935 pages).

A handsome, compact companion volume to the Library’s “Hammett: Complete Novels,” it includes an early draft of “The Thin Man” that bears almost no resemblance to the famous final version, plus two articles, an author chronology and notes.

The bulk of the book consists of 24 of Hammett’s best short stories, many of them featuring the author’s popular the Continental Op. They’ve been available in other collections. The longer work, “Woman in the Dark,” was published a few years ago as a complete book.

Marcus previously collected seven of the stories in his “The Continental Op” (Random House, 1974). But this is the largest number of the author’s gems to be found in one setting, making the book almost as valuable as “The Maltese Falcon.”

*

Dick Lochte, author of “Lucky Dog and Other Tales of Murder” (Five Star) and the prize-winning novel, “Sleeping Dog” (Poisoned Pen Press), reviews mysteries every other week.