Burnes Brothers Series

From The Edge of Justice to Crossing the Line, Clinton McKinzie has captivated readers with thrillers that combine heart-pounding action with searing human drama–and feature a truly unforgettable hero, Special Agent Antonio Burns. Now McKinzie delivers a new novel filled with his trademarks–the thrill of danger, the clash between the law and the lawless, and the struggles of a family bound by love, loyalty, and a hunger for adventure. Here McKinzie takes us to a stark Wyoming landscape, where one tragic moment plunges Antonio Burns into a whirlpool of hate, violence, and revenge.

Badwater

Antonio Burns is at a crossroads–he rarely sees his six-month-old daughter, and his career has spiraled downward from hotshot golden boy to nearly having his badge confiscated. And things are about to get even worse. When a ten-year-old boy dies in a drowning incident in Badwater, Wyoming, the townspeople want the tourist they feel is responsible convicted of murder. In an already explosive case, Burns has been forced into working for the prosecution–and when a media-hungry celebrity lawyer takes over the defense, justice turns into a charade.

Clinging to his sanity by climbing the crags and caverns of a local canyon, recovering from the near death of his daredevil brother and his breakup with the mother of his child, Antonio tries to turn his back on this situation. But he can’t. He finds one crucial piece of evidence, makes one mistake with a woman, and then turns to his brother, Roberto, for help. Soon he’s all the way in–no matter what the cost to his career, his life, or to the people who still count him as one of their own.…

The spellbinding story of a cop drawn to danger, a community steeped in hatred, and an explosive mix of opportunists, idealists, and a few very bad men, Badwater is a taut, thunderous novel–and Clinton McKinzie at his electrifying best.

Clinton McKinzie writes powerhouse thrillers that are like nothing you’ve ever read— novels that crackle with raw emotion and brilliantly explore the nature of risk: the risk that lovers take, adventurers seek, and men and women live with on both sides of the law. In an unforgettable new novel, set against the breathtaking Rocky Mountain landscape he has made his own, the acclaimed author of Trial by Ice and Fire brings back Special Agent Antonio Burns and his renegade brother, Roberto—two men who have chosen very different lives, now coming together to make a treacherous descent into a world of loss, betrayal, and terror.

Antonio Burns is a cop, not a saint. Having earned the scornful nickname “QuickDraw” for a shooting that went very wrong, the Wyoming narcotics agent is fighting for redemption and holding on to his family with all the strength he possesses. His brother, Roberto, is another story. His quicksilver heart, hair-trigger temper, and unquenchable hunger for adrenaline rushes have landed him prison—and make him the right person for an FBI agent with a plan. Agent Mary Chang—cool, collected, and always under control—wants to go after Hidalgo, a murderous drug lord who has moved his operation from Mexico to a Wyoming canyon. In Roberto, Chang has found someone who can penetrate Hildago’s heavily guarded crime ranch. And she has found a man who can quickly take her to her own wild side.

Now, while Mary and his brother watch over him, Roberto goes to work for Hidalgo for the promise of a free pass from prison. But Roberto can’t stay withany script for long, and soon starts making up the game as he goes along. With Antonio sure that his brother is taking the ultimate death trip, and Chang guarding a secret of her own, the perfect plan starts to veer wildly off course. And no one is prepared for the dark forces that are about to engulf them—or the final betrayal that will send them to the dizzying heights and abysmal depths of love and loss. A novel that plunges like a knife, Crossing the Line is vintage McKinzie: brilliant, breathless, and utterly impossible to put down.

Clinton McKinzie has carved out his own unique territory with suspense novels that blend the heart-pounding thrills of extreme mountain climbing with gripping legal intrigue. “One of the strongest debuts of the year” raved the Chicago Tribune about his debut novel, The Edge of Justice, which was hailed as “action-packed…a page-turner” by USA Today. Now the acclaimed author of The Edge of Justice and Point of Law ratchets up the suspense yet again with a third high-altitude thriller where Antonio Burns–climber, lover, brother, and cop–returns, and walks into a world of glamour, obsession, and terror.

Trial by Ice and Fire

Haunted by a reputation he earned by killing three men under questionable circumstances, Antonio Burns finds himself scorned by good cops and admired by bad ones. Unable to shake the tag of “QuickDraw,” Burns has stepped closer to the edge of society while still doing the job he’s paid to do and loving a woman who doesn’t understand him–and may not want him anymore. And with his charismatic but dangerously antisocial brother, Roberto, in trouble with the law, Burns has to manage his loyalties carefully: He is a cop. ’Berto is a fugitive. And they’d die for one another. When Burns is sent to protect Wyoming prosecutor Cali Morrow, a former ski racer being threatened by a stalker, it seems like an easy job. But Cali is the beautiful daughter of one of America’s hottest movie stars, and the stalker may well be a man working on Burns’s side of the law. Antonio has a hard time resisting the woman he’s supposed to be protecting–and stomaching the social swirl of those who make Jackson Hole their playground. With the feds closing in on his brother, Burns can feel his own personal lifeline slipping out of his grasp–until he himself becomes the target of a madman.Trial by Ice and Fire combines extreme menace with extreme action–from a breathless ski adventure down a near-vertical ice chute to a night climb up the Grand Teton above the Snake River. In this powerhouse of a thriller, Clinton McKinzie brings us characters who are living on the edge, a plot that delivers one body-slamming surprise after another, and a novel that is his most fully realized and exciting to date.

Special Agent Antonio Burns has come to Colorado for a family reunion of sorts. He and his father plan to confront Antonio’s brother, Roberto, whose life is teetering on the wrong side of the law. For thirty years a father and his sons have shared an addiction to dangerous, extreme climbing in the world’s most beautiful places. This just might be their last dance together. On their first night in the valley, violence has erupted around the Burns men, as a bitter dispute between local activists and developers leaves a young man dead. When Roberto stands accused, Antonio knows he must find the real killer to clear his brother’s name.

Now, with a beautiful renegade environmentalist by his side, Antonio embarks on a perilous journey through the jagged peaks–where he will come face-to-face with a woman’s secrets, a man’s evil, and an amazing undiscovered treasure deep within
a hidden labyrinth of caves.

Combining high-altitude climbing action with sizzling courtroom drama and raw tension, The Edge of Justice is a thriller like no other. Set amid the towering beauty of Wyoming’s mountains and the gritty underbelly of crime, here is a gut-wrenching debut novel that features one of recent fiction’s most original and complex heroes: Special Agent Antonio Burns–climber, cop, brother, son, risk-taker.

A climber by nature, a cop by trade, Antonio has come to Laramie to investigate a young woman’s deadly plunge. But as he digs deeper into the case, Antonio is certain he has found a murder…and a stunning connection to the trial of two men about to be executed for a crime they did not commit. With a beautiful reporter sharing his investigation, he must make a harrowing ascent: up a forbidding mountainside–to bring a killer down from the deadliest kind of high.