Rex Burns: 20 books

As in Volume 1, fables of the frogs to entertain children and adults. The sometimes wry, often witty short tales address issues of value and relationships in life.

The fourteen fables in "The Frogs of Sawhill Ponds" blend wit, wisdom, and verbal play in the tradition of "Wind in the Willows." Though many of the topics are serious, their treatment is light. Adults and children will find entertainment and depth as the frogs confront life's issues.

When a woman burns to death, Gabe Wager uncovers a nest of short-fuse fanatics The fire department finds her in the closet, knees clutched to her chest, body charred beyond recognition. At first they can’t even tell that the corpse was a woman. Although the death appears accidental, they...

When a stripper is murdered, Gabe Wager turns the red-light district inside out More than any other establishment on Denver’s red-light strip, the Cinnamon Club has taken advantage of the new law allowing all-nude dancing. What was once confined to back rooms now takes center stage, and the...

Wager hunts for the killer of a black councilman, as the city threatens to riot Gabe’s girlfriend Jo is drowning. She stares up at him, eyes wide with terror, as he fights to grab her hand. In a moment, the frothing river swallows her up, and Jo is gone.   Nine months have...

Winner of the Edgar Award: 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...

A botched coke bust forces Wager to go undercover for the first time in years For six months, the Denver narcotics team and the DEA have built a case against a cocaine-dealing heavy named Farnsworth. When Detective Reitman makes the final buy, he runs a field test to make sure the package of...

When gang warfare claims his cousin, Detective Wager seeks justice There was a time in Denver when a child’s murder was a tragedy, but now that gangs have taken hold of the city, teenage deaths are sickeningly routine. As far as homicide detective Gabriel Wager can tell, the latest victim,...

Young, but newly widowed, Lydia Sensabaugh struggles to make a living on her farm. Her husband had attempted to revitalize the worn-out soil with new chemicals. But he died of swamp fever before his experiment could be proven. Now, in 1861, the farm’s quiet isolation is invaded—first by mysterious...

Targeted by thugs, a wrestling impresario reaches out to an old friend When Otto Lidke got a tryout in pro football, he hired a lawyer friend named Jim Raiford to handle his contract. The negotiations were bungled, forcing both men into a career change. Trying to start a pro wrestling circuit...

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...

An old cowboy asks Gabe for help with his estranged sons When he was a teenager, Gabe Wager and his friends in the Denver barrio had no greater idol than Vaquero Tommy Sanchez. One of the rare Mexicans to break through into professional rodeo, Sanchez was a hero to every Hispanic boy with dreams...

The FBI asks Wager to clean up a mess on an Indian reservation Pressure is rising at Colorado’s Squaw Point Reservation, and the area is about to explode. After a federal agent is murdered and several park rangers are attacked, a mess of federal agencies descends on the area, hopelessly muddying...

A forcibly retired marine investigates the disappearance of a young girl Lieutenant-Colonel Jack Steele is too honest for Washington. If any other Marine Corps investigator had noticed a congressman’s corruption, he might have kept his mouth shut. But Steele knows his ultimate duty and blows...