Mystery Fiction by Rex Burns
Rex Burns - Author
The Better Part of Valor
Caught up in a low budget revolution fought in the jungles of Colombia, Cornelius Mead faces the challenges of survival in the chaos and insanity of war while clinging to his dream of turning the Guyana massacre site of Jonestown into a theme park.
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Testimonials
Gabe Wager Series
Gabe Wager is sent to an Indian reservation in the Four Corners area to help local law enforcement officials solve a series of murders.
The several killings don't seem to be related, but something is not quite right, and Wager quickly learns that he can't trust the people he was assigned to help. Complicating things, a shadowy survivalist group has the population afraid to talk to Wager.
The deaths and mayhem of Denver's youthful gang wars have come home to Detective Gabe Wager with the slaying of his teenage cousin. Although the case is not officially his, Wager manages to work on it at the same time that he's faced with the murder of a thirteen-year-old boy. As both cases progress, Wager not only explores the ins and outs of Denver's gang scene, but also the ties of family.
One of Wager's most dangerous cases involves not only the charred body of a fire victim but the secrets that have been hidden by the victim's death. The resulting hunt for the possible killer leads Wager into the world of terrorism and a frightening plot to detonate the nuclear arms factory at Rocky Flats just outside Denver.
The death of a black city councilman threatens to unleash riots in Denver. Not only is the case politically explosive, but it turns out that the city councilman had a secret life. Homicide Detective Gabe Wager must solve the crime before time runs out, and do so in the face of racial conflict.
Using his vacation to help an old friend locate his two grown-up sons, Detective Gabe Wager and his girlfriend, Jo Fabrizio, end up in the middle of the central Colorado mesa country. The trail leads them into the world of rodeo as well as into the rough waters of a river expedition. The result is danger and death both from the river as well as from unknown assailants.
The seemingly motiveless and unconnected slayings of two strip-tease dancers lead Detective Gabe Wager into the seedy underworld of Denver's topless bars, all-night restaurants, and furtive street life. Going undercover as a drug dealer, Wager finds that his search for the killer has turned into the killer's search for him.
This adventure leads Detective Gabe Wager out of his usual Denver haunts. Trying to solve one seemingly random murder in the city, he follows leads first to the smaller city of Pueblo, Colorado, and then out to the desert country of western Colorado along the Utah border. On the way, he discovers that clues are not what they seem, and he ends up in a confrontation with outlaw Mormons determined to defend their way of life to the death.
Homicide detective Gabe Wager becomes tangled in a gang shooting. The principals come from the Italian and Latino sections of Denver, and the chase forces Wager to confront the issue of obeying the law or obeying justice. Either choice will lead to dangerous consequences for the detective.
Now in the Denver Police's homicide section, Gabe Wager's first murder case is bizarre. A corpse is reported found in a picturesque setting at Denver's Botanical Gardens. But it isn't a corpse, it is only the head. The new homicide detective must literally piece together the evidence that would speak for the victim and name the killer
Detective Gabe Wager's second narcotics case. This one involves a tightly-knit organization based in a small town in the Colorado mountains. Wager goes undercover to get his evidence, ferreting out a complex smuggling plot to send stolen military weapons to Latin America in exchange for narcotics.
Denver police detective Gabriel Wager, assigned to the Organized Crime Unit, investigates a narcotics smuggling ring that operates out of a shop which imports Latin American handicrafts. The case leads Wager back into his own Hispanic past to confront acquaintances from his school days, whose path had led them outside the law.
THE ALVAREZ JOURNAL was the winner of the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar for the best first novel, 1976.
The Touchstone Agency Series
When a sailor dies under unusual circumstances, James Raiford goes undercover on the high seas. Desperate to know more about their son’s death, the Rossi family turns to James and Julie Raiford, the father-daughter detective team behind the Touchstone Agency. As the Raifords soon learn, work on the open sea is dangerous—and asking questions can be deadly. International oil shipping is a ruthless business, and its secrets run as deep as the ocean itself.
When shady business practices escalate into threats on his life, Otto Lidke calls on James Raiford, private investigator, to dig up some dirt on the men who are trying to run him out of business. But instead he gets Raiford’s daughter, Julie—a whip-smart sleuth looking to prove she’s every bit as savvy as her father. As Julie and her dad dig into the vicious world of small-time wrestling, they find that though the fights may be fixed, the danger is all too real.
Other Fiction
Jack Steele, recently retired Marine officer living in Coronado, California, is asked by family friends to find their runaway daughter. He reluctantly agrees and is drawn into the past and her resultant life.
It is a life of mysterious terror, threat, and the twisted psychology of devil worshipers who are willing to sacrifice anyone for their cult.
Into Enemy Arms, Black Opal Books, 2017
Lydia Sensabaugh, a young widow in Virginia in 1861, finds the quiet isolation of her farm invaded—first by mysterious lights and then by rumors of secession and war. She learns hard lessons, following news of the bloody fighting on the Mainland, participating in the dangerous activity of smuggling supplies to Lee’s army, and by witnessing the war’s effect on hospitalized soldiers. As the war grinds on, her world reflects the age’s philosophical shift from Emerson to Social Darwinism, and promises outcomes that are both unclear and terrifying.
Other Books
Co-edited with Mary Rose Sullivan, this anthology of mystery stories traces the genre's development from Edgar Allan Poe to contemporary times. A critical introduction and notes help the reader place the stories in history and clarify their various contributions to the genre
A study of the concept of success in America at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the early Nineteenth Century.
Materials looked at include children's homiletic literature, newspapers of the period, and the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne. The image of the bucolic yeoman is traced at it is transformed into the Yeoman Mechanic.
Foreign Editions
Britain: Penguin Books
Italy: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore
Ex-Secret Service agent Devlin Kirk and his partner, Homer Bunchcroft, are struggling to launch their industrial security firm in Denver.
Owen McAllister, a millionaire industrial developer, hires Kirk and Associates to find out how two of his $100 million projects were sabotaged and by whom.
The investigation leads Kirk into the savage world of big-money investment, as well as into his own past and the suicide of his father.
Britain: Penguin Books
Britain: Penguin Books
Portugal: Distri Editora
Holland: Meulenhoff Nederland
Britain: Robert Hale
Germany: Mohrbooks
Italy: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore
France: Editions Gallimard
Holland: Meulenhoff Nederland
Britain: Robert Hale
Germany: Rowholt Taschenbuch Verlag
Sweden: Albert Bonniers Forlag
Italy: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore
Japan: Kadokawa Shoten
Holland: Meulenhoff Nederland
Britain: Robert Hale
Germany: Mohrbooks
France: Editions Gallimard
Japan: Kadokawa Shoten
Holland: Meulenhoff Nederland
Britain: Robert Hale