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 Awrd–winning first novel, The Alvarez Journal (1975), introduced Gabe Wager, a Denver police detective working in an organized crime unit. Burns continued this hard-boiled series through ten more novels, concluding it with 1997’s The Leaning Land. One of the Wager mysteries, The Avenging Angel (1983), was adapted as a feature film, Messenger of Death, starring Charles Bronson. Burns’s other two series center on Devlin Kirk and James Raiford, both Denver-based private detectives.

Once a monthly mystery review columnist in the Rocky Mountain News, Burns has also written nonfiction and hosted the Mystery Channel’s Anatomy of a Mystery. He lives and writes in Boulder, Colorado.