The Leaning Land: A Gabe Wager Mystery

Gabe Wager #11

by Rex Burns

Jurisdictional disputes, competing agents - the F.B.I., the Bureau of Land Management, and Indian police - and the usual distrust of the citizens of small towns when it comes to dealing with folks from the "big city" combine to make Denver police detective Gabe Wager's life more complex than he'd like. Add to an already volatile mix the fact that the murder he's asked to help investigate took place on the Squaw Point reservation, and what he faces is a ticking bomb, just waiting for an inappropriate moment to explode.
After Waco and Ruby Ridge, the F.B.I. is taking as much of a hands-off policy as possible when it comes to matters that might be handled by local authorities. But in La Sal County in Colorado, no one trusts anyone else enough to even begin cooperating; Wager will appear neutral and can act as liaison between all the parties.
Things don't work out exactly as planned, and what appears to be a local militia's attempts to keep the government away has deeper and more far-reaching roots.

269 pages, Hardcover

First published July 8, 1997

About the author

Rex Burns (b. 1935) is the author of numerous thrillers set in and around Denver, Colorado. Born in California, he served in the Marine Corps and attended Stanford University and the University of Minnesota before becoming a writer. His Edgar Award–winning first novel, The Alvarez Journal (1975), introduced Gabe Wager, a Denver police detective first working in an organized crime unit, then in homicide. Burns continued this hardboiled series through ten more novels, concluding it with 1997’s The Leaning Land. His second series (3 volumes) features Devlin Kirk and "Bunch" Bunchcroft, a private investigator series set in Colorado. The third series, beginning in 2013, follows the adventures of a father/daughter private detective team. The first, "Body Slam," focuses on the world of professional wrestling. The second, set in England and the Middle East, deals with theft from an oil tanker. His short story series, appearing in "Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine," features Aboriginal Constable Leonard Smith of the Western Australia Police.

Reviews

[Jamesjohn Jamesjohn · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good mystery set in the high desert of Colorado, with believably colorful characters and keen insight into the greed and attitudes of rural politics.

Minus one star for awful copyediting. Also minus one because the expository sections were too long to be enjoyable, and the characters were 'wagging their heads' too much.