If I had ever read any crime novels or mysteries prior to 1994 I cannot recall what they would have been. No Sherlock Holmes. No Agatha Christie. I had not even discovered Ed McBain yet. Then I started interviewing authors on the radio. That has changed everything. I started reading crime novels and mysteries and thrillers and now I'm completely hooked. They are like potato chips. I cannot stop after just one. I have to keep reading them.
Fortunately we are living in bonanza times for these genres. One imprint in particular, Minotaur Books, cranks out a steady stream of crime novels of every possible type. Every week or so I discover a new crime writer that I had not known about. CB McKenzie is another one. He has set his literary debut, "Bad Country," in the desert region of southern Arizona.
As the story opens his protagonist, Rodeo Grace Garnet, has made the unfortunate realization that someone recently dumped a murder victim right by his house in a remote region known locally as El Hoyo, or The Hole. Garnet is a former rodeo rider who is eking out a living any way that he can. He will serve a warrant or try to collect a bounty for apprehending a fugitive. He cannot afford to be that picky about his clientele. And if you hire him you had better plan on paying him. He gets a bit touchy when he doesn't get paid.
He is retained by a rather oddball client. This leads him into an investigation which slowly reveals that the corpse found outside his home is just one of many. All these victims were Native Americans. Who is killing them, and why? Rodeo is on the case. This story is a real page turner and a sparkling first novel by CB McKenzie. Or as the author prefers, just McKenzie.
That one was really tasty. I think I'll read another one right away.
