Angle of Attack

Gabe Wager #4

by Rex Burns

A tip about a murdered mob boss forces Gabe Wager to reopen a cold case. A year ago, Marco Scorvelli was murdered while picking up his morning paper. A sawed-off shotgun put a hole in his stomach, and streaked the inside of his sports coat with the mob boss's innards. As Scorvelli crawled towards his front door, the killer left the shotgun angled neatly on the sidewalk. No prints were recovered, and no headway was ever made on the case.

Now a reliable underworld source passes a message to homicide detective Gabe Wager. The killing wasn't ordered by a rival family, but by Scorvelli's brother, in an attempt to take control of the organization. After a year of peace, a war is about to erupt between Denver's Italian and Hispanic crime syndicates, and Gabe Wager will be in the middle, trying to keep the city from burning to the ground.

250 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 1, 1979

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

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Homicide Detective Gabriel Wager is approached by Tony-O with a lead on an old case in which the Denver police have no leads. The Prime suspect, who seems clean. is murdered and the case becomes current.

[Jack Heath]

Synopsis: a tip about a murdered mob boss forces detective Gabe Wager to reopen a cold case.