Head Wounds

By: Michael McGarrity

Narrated by: George Newbern

Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's summary

Given a chance to salvage his law enforcement career, Dona Ana County Sheriff’s Detective Clayton Istee catches a bizarre late-night double homicide at a Las Cruces hotel. Both victims, a man and a woman, have been scalped with their throats cut.

The murders show all the signs of a signature hit, but national and state crime databases reveal no similar profiles. Digging into the victims’ backgrounds, Clayton discovers that six months prior the couple had walked out of a nearby casino with $200,000 of a high-stakes gambler’s money.

He also learns the crime had been hushed up by an undercover federal DEA agent, who resurfaces and recruits Clayton for a dangerous mission to seize the Mexican drug lord responsible for the killings.

Thrust into the nightmare world of borderland drug wars and corrupt cops, Clayton duels with a cunning assassin poised to kill him and his family in a ferocious climax to the Kevin Kerney series that is sure to stun.

©2020 Michael McGarrity (P)2020 Dreamscape Media, LLC

Story line drags on and on

Mixing of New Mexico and Eagle Pass Texas makes for Unbelievable story. Too many characters to keep up with.

Not a typically good book by McGarrity standards.

Bad performance, hard to follow this story..

Not really a Kevin Kearny book...all the characters get muddled, terrible reader. Can’t recommend this book.

This is a good story, poorly told

This is a great series and all of the other books have been well produced with good narration. This book has a great overall story line, but it sounded like it was written by a committee and read like it was a phone menu. I can only say I think that McGarrity was let down by his publishers. This is said to be the climax of the Kevin Kearney series, if so, I only can guess that the author was not able to quality control the production of this novel You will see nothing new about the Kearney family or the isti family in this book and it just doesn't sound like it was finished... Feedback for Mr. Newborn; listen to George Guidall and study his methods. You have the voice for it, but you are so flat it hurts the storyline.

Poor narration saved only by the great story

I've read or listened to every one of Michael Mcgarrity's books. I've thoroughly enjoyed every one of them. I try not to get too attached to a single narrator, and I work hard not to judge a new narrator too harshly who has big shoes to fill when he or she takes over from another. That said, it was a struggle to get through this audiobook. From poor voice acting that made it very hard at times, to follow dialog; to a near complete lack of attention to tempo and voicing as scenes changed - which made it very difficult to realize that we had jumped from one scene to another; to an occasional disregard for the audible use of the comma, this audiobook was rough. Obviously, there is no way as listeners for us to know if this is a problem in production/direction, or if it is a failure of the narrator. I hope McGarrity's next book is given a better production. They all deserve it.

Enjoyed the audiobook

I’ve listened to and enjoyed all the Kevin kerney
books and world recommend them. I miss the previous narrator. The narrator of this book is ok and has a lot of narration to his credit but didn’t click for me.

An exceptional read

As a loyal reader of Michael McGarrity's novels, I consider this to be one of his best. Incorporating history and background of Native American subjects makes this truly interesting and entertaining. I would have rated this novel 5 stars plus, but the author felt compelled to enlighten the reader with a few "woke" comments to be fashionable.

Another Great McGarry novel.

Didn't see the ending coming the way it did. Great job of history and background of law enforcement.

Very twisty, but still good.

I know everyone did not like the narration but a lot of the book was police procedures and practices, which needed someone speaking in a clear somewhat monotone voice. I did have to write some names down to keep the Spanish and Indian people straight,
The ending was confusing: was the phone going to trigger an explosion or was it just a phone??? Lots of killing and gorilla warfare, but thank god no ridiculous rape scenes like in another Kearney book.

New Michael McGarrity book

I don’t like to review books, I’m not an author and know it is hard creative work. I’ve been a fan of McGarrity’s books since the first book he wrote. A native New Mexican, Santa Fe high school grad I have lived all over the world, so reading his books is like reading about home. The characters, ranching life, military background echo much of my experience. The audio actor on this book was disappointing, he sounded like he is reading a bedtime story for kids. Inflection, expression, statement breaks were disappointing and for me, fell short of the weight and importance of the characters’ actions and personalities. I was expecting to hear George Guiddal, but not so. That said, George Newbern’s narration gained in technique, style, appropriate expression to the writing over the last few chapters and carried the active complicated story better than the first two-thirds of the book. I won’t, however, be skipping any future books.

Needs Better Direction for Narrator

This book is about a complicated police investigation in the area of the Southwest that I know well, and in some respects was a great story. It skips rapidly from storyline to storyline, character to character. The narrator was good, but a small hesitation from location to location would spare the listener from a lot of confusion and back tracking. Also, the mis-pronounced words (colonia, San Luis Potosí, and a few others) was annoying.