Michael McGarrity (born 1940) is a New Mexican author and former law enforcement officer. He has written a dozen crime novels set in New Mexico and the American West trilogy, historical novels also set in New Mexico consisting of Hard Country, Backlands and The Last Ranch. As deputy sheriff of Santa Fe County he founded their sex crimes unit. [1]
McGarrity attended the University of New Mexico for three years and graduated from San Jose State University with a Bachelor's degree with distinction in English and Psychology. He earned a Master's degree in clinical social work from the University of Iowa and is a graduate of the New Mexico Law Enforcement academy. [2]
In addition to law enforcement work, he has been an investigator and caseworker for the New Mexico Public Defender's Office. [2] He worked on rehabilitating prison programs after the New Mexico State Penitentiary riot in 1980. McGarrity has taught at several colleges and universities as well as the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy. [3] As a social worker [2] he published a number of articles in professional journals on a wide range of topics, ranging from therapy programs for children, to program assessment and evaluation, and drug treatment interventions.[ citation needed ]
McGarrity's crime novels take place in modern New Mexico, with law enforcement officer Kevin Kerney as the protagonist. The settings are vividly evoked [4] and range from the Tularosa Basin and Lincoln County to Hermit's Peak, although many take place in Santa Fe. "Hard Country," "Backlands," and "The Last Ranch" form a sweeping trilogy tracing the Kerney family's history in New Mexico from 1875 through the end of the Vietnam War. A ground breaking prequel trilogy, all three books are set on the Tularosa Basin of south central New Mexico.
McGarrity has been nominated three times for the Western Writers of America Spur Award for Best Western Novel as well as an Anthony Award for his debut novel, Tularosa.
He has received the following awards:
Tularosa is a village in Otero County, New Mexico, United States. It shares its name with the Tularosa Basin, in which the town is located. To the east, Tularosa is flanked by the western edge of the Sacramento Mountains. The population was 2,553 at the 2020 census. During the 1990s and early 2000s, the town, north of the much larger Alamogordo, experienced moderate growth and construction as a bedroom community, especially in the housing industry. Tularosa is noted for its abundance of cottonwood shade trees and its efforts to preserve the adobe-style architecture of its past.
The Lincoln County War was an Old West conflict between rival factions which began in 1878 in Lincoln County, New Mexico Territory, the predecessor of the state of New Mexico, and continued until 1881. The feud became famous because of the participation of William H. Bonney. Other notable participants included Sheriff William J. Brady, cattle rancher John Chisum, lawyer and businessmen Alexander McSween, James Dolan and Lawrence Murphy.
Albert Bacon Fall was a United States senator from New Mexico and Secretary of the Interior under President Warren G. Harding who became infamous for his involvement in the Teapot Dome scandal; he was the only person convicted as a result of the affair. As a captain in the United States Army, he supported a military invasion of Mexico in 1916 as a means of ending Pancho Villa's raids.
The Santa Fe Trail was a 19th-century route through central North America that connected Franklin, Missouri, with Santa Fe, New Mexico. Pioneered in 1821 by William Becknell, who departed from the Boonslick region along the Missouri River, the trail served as a vital commercial highway until 1880, when the railroad arrived in Santa Fe. Santa Fe was near the end of El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro which carried trade from Mexico City. The trail was later incorporated into parts of the National Old Trails Road and U.S. Route 66.
The Staircase is a historical fiction novel by Ann Rinaldi.
Hermit's Peak is a mountain in San Miguel County, in northern New Mexico, United States.
Oliver Milton Lee, commonly known as Oliver Lee was a part-time deputy U.S. marshal, rancher, and gunfighter. Lee was born in Buffalo Gap, Texas and died in Alamogordo, New Mexico, where the Oliver Lee Memorial State Park is named for him.
The New Mexico State Police (NMSP) is the law enforcement agency of the U.S. state of New Mexico. Administered by the New Mexico Department of Public Safety, it has jurisdiction anywhere in the state, often working in tandem with local and federal law enforcement. Founded in 1905, NMSP's official mission is to protect the lives, property and constitutional rights of the people of New Mexico.
The Santa Fe New Mexican or simply The New Mexican is a daily newspaper published in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Dubbed "the West's oldest newspaper," its first issue was printed on November 28, 1849.
George W. Hindman was a 19th-century American cowboy and law enforcement officer serving as a deputy sheriff of Lincoln County, New Mexico, during the early months of the Lincoln County War.
Alamogordo Daily News, founded in 1898, is a daily newspaper published in Alamogordo, New Mexico, United States. It carries local news as well as syndicated content from Associated Press and others.
The New Mexico History Museum is a history museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It is part of the state-run Museum of New Mexico system operated by the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs. Opened in 2009, the museum houses 96,000 square feet (8,900 m2) of permanent and rotating exhibits covering the history of New Mexico from ancient Native American cultures to the present.
Bonanza City is a ghost town, located 13 miles (21 km) southwest of Santa Fe in Santa Fe County, New Mexico, United States. The town was founded in 1880 as a mining town, following the discovery of gold and silver in the nearby Cerrillos Hills. It was abandoned sometime in the early 1900s. Later in the 20th century, The Bonanza Creek Movie Ranch, which contains a movie set depicting a late 19th century mining town, was built near the ruins of Bonanza City.
Jacobo de la Serna is a ceramic artist, Spanish Colonial scholar and painter. His work is exhibited in permanent collections around the United States.
Jonathan Richards is an American author, journalist, actor, and cartoonist. He was born in Washington, DC, in 1941, and educated at South Kent School and Brown University.
Polly Barton is an American textile artist.
Cold Mountain is an American opera in two acts and an epilogue, with music by Jennifer Higdon and the libretto by Gene Scheer, based on Charles Frazier's 1997 novel of the same name. The opera is a co-commission between Santa Fe Opera, Opera Philadelphia and the Minnesota Opera, in collaboration with North Carolina Opera. The opera received its world premiere at Santa Fe Opera on 1 August 2015. This production coincided with the 150th anniversary of the ending of the American Civil War. Opera Philadelphia gave its first performance of the opera, in a slightly revised form, on 5 February 2016. North Carolina Opera gave the opera its home state premiere on 28 September 2017. The Minnesota Opera staged the opera in 2018 as part of its New Works Initiative. The Virginia Opera also featured performances of the opera during February 2021 as part of its themed "Love is a Battlefield" 2020–2021 season.
William Lumpkins (1909-2000) was an American artist and architect best known for his abstract watercolors and pioneering solar adobe architecture. He was a founding member of the Transcendental Painting Group and cofounder of the Santa Fe Art Institute with Pony Ault.
Godless is an American Western drama streaming television miniseries created, written and directed by Scott Frank. In the series, set in 1884, a young outlaw on the run from his vengeful mentor winds up in a small New Mexico town populated almost entirely by women. The seven-episode series began production in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in September 2016, and was released on Netflix globally on November 22, 2017. The series received positive reviews, and was named one of the year's 10 best by The Washington Post and Vanity Fair.
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