The Alvarez Journal

Gabe Wager #1

by Rex Burns

A letter tips off a Denver narcotics detective to a colossal smuggling ring
Once, Denver’s small-time pushers sold nothing harder than dime bags of bad California grass. But in the last year, heroin has appeared on the streets of the Mile High City, and the police department has responded by forming a narcotics division. Detective Gabe Wager and his rookie partner spend their nights trailing dealers, making buys, and acquiring informants, in the hope that a small arrest could turn into a major case. After months picking up scraps, a stray piece of information is about to put Wager on to the biggest bust of his career. A letter from the Seattle DEA says that an informant has named Denver’s Rare Thing Import Shop as a front for nearly a thousand pounds a week of smuggled marijuana. The case could make Wager’s career—if the smugglers don’t kill him first.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Mystery Thriller

273 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1976

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

[tortoise dreams · Rating 4 out of 5]

If racist and sexist comments are a deal breaker this book is not for you and it may seem "dated." But as we've learned those attributes are neither relics of the past nor an unrealistic representation of police officers, though not an endorsement. For some it will be eye-opening. The Alvarez Journal is Rex Burns' first novel and the first featuring Hispanic detective Gabe Wager of the Denver Police Department. As a solid police procedural it reeks of verisimilitude down to the cliché of the ungodly amounts of bad coffee consumed. The story is simply the description of a single investigation of a major drug supplier from first suspicion to courtroom finale. The plot is replete with aspects of the criminal justice system: knowingly letting drugs flow when there's no evidence to arrest, techniques used to elude police surveillance, the strain on family. One attribute of police work emphasized is flipping criminals into informants, including what happens when a snitch gets exposed. There's brutality, lies, and a casual attitude to the niceties of the law. Burns notes that the next generation of criminals learns from the mistakes of the last. The novel is set solidly in the Seventies and as a semi-local the Denver and Colorado locations were a plus. Although the detective is Hispanic, Burns doesn't go deep into the awkward position on a police force for officers of color. The Alvarez Journal won an Edgar Award as a competent and methodical police procedural. [3½★]

[Jeffrey Philips · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent police procedural mystery.

[GhostofMyrtle]

The Alvarez Journal is the first novel to feature Detective Gabriel Wager of the Detroit police force. Ten more novels featuring the character followed, one of which, The Avenging Death, was made into a film entitled Messenger of Death starring Charles Bronson.

The Alvarez Journal is an excellent as a debut novel and police procedural. Rex Burns won the Edgar prize for best first novel.

[Treva Hearne · Rating 1 out of 5]

maybe a little dated by the time I read it.

[James S. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Corny, extremely dated, and not particularly well written. Not all Edgars are created equal.

[Sheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can join Iain in saying this is "the best police procedural I ever read," but in my case that's likely because I've read so few police procedurals! I've read considerably more non-fiction on police work than I have fiction. When it comes to mysteries, I'm more for cosies and whodunits with amateur detectives. I started this one partly because it was written by one of my old college profs, but that wouldn't have motivated me to finish it. I finished it partly out of nostalgia -- the tone is soooo the seventies, and I lived in Denver most of that decade.

That said, the story is solid, and the details about police work of that era probably depressingly accurate. The book itself makes clear that not all cops were as rough and cold as Gabe Wagner, but cops like that did exist and did get the job done in terms of stopping crime. This book is a snapshot of a time when nearly everyone in power believed that drugs needed to be illegal, and that ending illegal drugs would solve all manner of social ills. I disagree with those positions, and to a lesser extent I disagreed with them at the time (back then I knew my opinion was more gut feeling than a rational conclusion based on research), which was definitely a minority opinion.

I think our more modern understanding of the damage the War on Drugs did undercuts this book somewhat -- ditto our sensitivity to police violence. This book would have rung more true and been more enjoyable when first released.

[Sherman Langford · Rating 2 out of 5]

Enjoyed reading novel set in Denver. But overall just not that great of a read or that interesting of a story or very compellingly characters. Had hard time following who was who among the antagonists. The police brutality at times engaged in by Gabe Wager was off putting.

[Iain · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this story as engaging as when I first read it twenty years ago. Burns captures the gritty Denver of the 70's, the pre-gentrified Denver of urban renewal with landmarks and environs familiar to today's residents. I believe this series remains the best police procedural I've ever read.

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

A story about a drug bust.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is dated but a good story.