Burns has arrived in Laramie, the site of the Matthew Shepard murder. Presently there is a trial for a second gruesome murder going on. A young Chinese-American woman had been brutally murdered and mutilated; racial comments were written in her blood. Two brothers are being tried for the crime; the prosecutor is Nathan Karge, widely expected to be the next governor of the state.

Burns was an Air Force brat and lived in Laramie for two years. He has an unusual ethnic heritage - Hispanic, Mestizo, and Celtic; his parents reside in Argentina. When he was a boy, his father, brother, and he used to rock climb at the Vedauwoo nearby. For years he was a major figure in the rock climbing world, but Burns’s feeling of alienation has led his abandoning his pastime. The return to Laramie, however, has prompted him to take up rock climbing once more.

Rebecca Hersh, a journalist attending the trial, captures Burns’s interest. He has consistently refused to grant interviews to members of the media, but he makes an exception for Rebecca.

The death of another young woman, ruled accidental by the coroner, is Burns’s reason for being in Laramie. Suspicions have been raised that the ruling may have been too precipitous. She and her friends, including Billy Heller, a Charles Manson-type and aging rock climber, and Brad Karge, the prosecutor’s son, may have been involved in drug trafficking. Burns’s investigations will soon turn up many inconsistencies in the sheriff’s and coroner’s reports and cast doubt on the guilt of the pair currently on trial.

Antonio Burns is a classic underdog hero - underappreciated, alienated, dedicated, and courageous to a fault. It seems impossible that so few recognize his superior qualities. (Actually there’s a brief hint at the end that more do appreciate him than he realizes.) Burns is a hero in the Jack Reacher and Dirty Harry Callahan tradition. The Edge of Justice is McKinzie’s first book, but others are already in the works.

I long ago noticed that Dick Francis’s heroes were inevitably going to endure a drubbing before the end of the book - beating, shooting, mayhem, something. Francis’s heroes have nothing on Antonio Burns. This guy endures more physical punishment than a squadron of other heroes. And he’s operating on sleep deprivation, too. Thank heavens he’s got a few friends or he never would have survived till the last page! There’s an additional similarity to the Francis books - written in the first person, the hero is also the narrator.

Author McKinzie’s picture on the stepback cover shows him in a macho rock climbing pose. Rock climbing is more than just a minor thread in this book. I know absolutely nothing about rock climbing, but I was struck by the detail in The Edge of Justice. This author knows the moves, the equipment, and the lingo.

While reading The Edge of Justice, I fully expected to give it three Stars. The repeated episodes of Burns tackling mountains became tedious and slowed the story’s pacing. Then I reached the final quarter of the book and things really picked up! In the end, I decided this is a book worth recommending, but unless you’re a devotee, you may want to skim some of the man against the mountain sections. (I’ll give you the abbreviated version - he starts up, he reaches the top, he comes down again.) But the investigation and personal challenges sections are definitely worth your time. This is an author to watch and a hero to follow.

--Lesley Dunlap