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Penzler Pick, April 2002: In his accomplished first novel, Clinton McKinzie introduces an interesting, complicated protagonist in Antonio Burns, a special agent whose family was originally from Argentina. His grandfather owned a ranch (which is still in the family), and his father taught Burns how to climb. And, oh yes, Burns has a brother serving a long jail sentence in the United States.
Burns has earned the nickname Quickdraw for shooting down three drug dealers before they could shoot him, and the investigation of that incident still hangs over his head. As the book opens he is in Laramie, Wyoming, attending the trial and sentencing of the Knapp brothers, who are accused of raping, torturing, and killing a young girl. The verdict would seem to be a foregone conclusion, as is the death penalty. Two years after the killers of Matthew Shepherd were spared the ultimate penalty, Laramie is anxious to show it can be tough on crime.
When Burns is not at the courthouse, he is relaxing with his dog Oso at Vedauwoo, a difficult climbing region much loved by the local community. When a young woman falls to her death while climbing with a group, her death is ruled an accident because the young climbers were up on the rocks drinking and fooling around. But when Burns inspects the site of the accident and looks at the girl's injuries, he begins to suspect foul play.
As he gets to know the core group of climbers led by the charismatic Billy Heller, who takes an immediate dislike to Burns, he is even more suspicious because of the hold Heller has over the young female climbers. Burns also begins to get involved with one of the attractive climbers, something he immediately regrets when he meets Rachel, a reporter from The Denver Post.
Burns has a complicated personal life, but he is a good cop and it soon becomes clear to him that the climbing death of the young girl, which is soon followed by other deaths, is connected to something going on in the climbing community and this, in turn, casts doubt on the conviction and sentencing of the Knapp brothers.
McKinzie weaves a fascinating and very readable story here. With climbing scenes that are authentically exciting and very plausible characters, this is an impressive first novel. --Otto Penzler
From Publishers Weekly
McKinzie, a keen climber, portrays the hero of his debut thriller, Wyoming special agent Antonio Burns, as happiest when he is in the wild, hanging by his fingernails from a sheer rock wall. The problem is, he has to deal with life on level ground: he's in trouble for shooting three drug dealers in self-defense, his wild but cherished brother is in jail and the redneck local law officers he has to deal with are trying to railroad a pair of innocent lowlifes to the chair. In addition, he's looking into the fatal fall off a cliff of a young woman who had been partying with the son of an ambitious DA. McKinzie knows his wild Wyoming, and also how to keep things moving briskly. Burns, who is soon on the track of a rogue climber who likes to surround himself with pretty girls and potheads, takes his share of knocks along the way, and there is a nail-biting if not entirely convincing climax on a mountain in a storm. But as often happens with first novels, it's overplotted: there's simply too much going on at once, and poor Burns gets badly beaten at least once too often to convince a reader that he could even stand up, let alone get up a tough rock face in the dark solo; his jailed brother plays an unexpected and not too believable role at a pivotal moment; and the on-again, off-again romance with a glamorous reporter seems more dutiful than organic. Still, this gets good marks for ringing a change or two on the chase thriller, and we're now promised a prequel, starring the same gutsy hero. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
First-time novelist McKinzie is a former Colorado deputy district attorney and avid mountain climber. This first-person thriller features Special Agent Antonio Burns of the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigations, who also happens to be an expert climber. Just as the local district attorney is completing the prosecution of a high-profile murder case, Burns is asked to investigate the mountain-climbing death of a young woman. He soon discovers a possible relationship between the two cases. Since much of the action takes place in the mountains, McKinzie includes a great deal of climbing detail. Otherwise, the story is one-dimensional: enemies of Burns are evil, corrupt, or weak, while his friends are loyal and kind. The book resembles a hard-boiled detective story, as the main character is constantly faced with danger and violence. Readers of this genre will probably enjoy the book, depending on whether they are interested in all that information about climbing. The author already has a multibook contract and will continue with this character. Suitable for larger popular collections. Joel W. Tscherne, Cleveland P.L.Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From AudioFile
Clinton McKinzie's debut novel, set in Wyoming, has a high-altitude focus. THE EDGE OF JUSTICE offers a twist on traditional whodunits, and also looks at the world of climbing. John Bedford Lloyd's narration suits the book well; he gives Special Agent Antonio Burns the right mix of emotion and indignation. Lloyd is equally adept at creating unique personas for the young climbers who are the focus of Burns's investigation. Unfortunately, the ending, which tries to tie up the loose ends, instead makes the listener realize that some clues have been left on the cutting-room floor. D.J.S. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
From Booklist
From this rock climber and former prosecutor comes a first novel about Special Agent Antonio Burns, Wyoming Department of Criminal Investigations officer and recreational climber. Burns' simple assignment--work with local law enforcement to investigate an apparently accidental climbing death--turns into a life-and-death battle to clear the names of two defendants in a seemingly unrelated murder trial. Although the novel has some rough edges, it's a solid mystery that should keep readers interested to the end. In what is becoming an overused narrative strategy, McKinzie has his protagonist tell the story in the present tense. This approach only works if the mystery really requires it, if there is some reason why the narrator can't already know how the story turns out. Here, it seems false, an unnecessary gimmick. Still, McKinzie has talent: a sense of character and dialogue, the imagination to construct a unique and complex plot. A flawed first effort from a promising author, then, but worth reading all the same, especially for rock-climbing enthusiasts. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
PRAISE FOR THE EDGE OF JUSTICE
“McKinzie knows his wild Wyoming, and also how to keep things moving briskly…. [The Edge of Justice] gets good marks for ringing a change or two on the chase thriller, and we’re now promised a prequel, starring the same gutsy hero.”
-Publishers Weekly
“An adrenaline-pumping, heart-pounding thrill ride with a terrifying climax that left me clenching for a handhold.”
--Tess Gerritsen
“One of the strongest debuts of the year.”
--Chicago Tribune
Review
PRAISE FOR THE EDGE OF JUSTICE
?McKinzie knows his wild Wyoming, and also how to keep things moving briskly?. [The Edge of Justice] gets good marks for ringing a change or two on the chase thriller, and we?re now promised a prequel, starring the same gutsy hero.?
-Publishers Weekly
?An adrenaline-pumping, heart-pounding thrill ride with a terrifying climax that left me clenching for a handhold.?
--Tess Gerritsen
?One of the strongest debuts of the year.?
--Chicago Tribune
Book Description
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.
From the Inside Flap
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.
From the Back Cover
PRAISE FOR THE EDGE OF JUSTICE
“McKinzie knows his wild Wyoming, and also how to keep things moving briskly…. [The Edge of Justice] gets good marks for ringing a change or two on the chase thriller, and we’re now promised a prequel, starring the same gutsy hero.”
-Publishers Weekly
“An adrenaline-pumping, heart-pounding thrill ride with a terrifying climax that left me clenching for a handhold.”
--Tess Gerritsen
“One of the strongest debuts of the year.”
--Chicago Tribune
About the Author
CLINTON MCKINZIE lives in Colorado with his wife, son, and dog. Prior to becoming a writer, he worked as a peace officer and deputy district attorney in Denver. His passion is climbing alpine walls. The Edge of Justice is his first novel. His second novel is the prequel to The Edge of Justice and will be coming from Delacorte Press.
From the Hardcover edition.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
ONE
A dry wind blows hard out of the Medicine Bow Mountains onto the high plateau of the Laramie River, just as it does every fall in the southeast part of the state. It's a steady pressure, as unrelenting as gravity, but also a force that seems to have a mischievous intent. The wind is regularly fed by the curses of the fifty thousand enduring souls who inhabit the high plains and mountains here. On this day its fuel is further charged by the oaths of people who have never before had the opportunity to feel its power. The multitudes of television reporters gathered outside on the courthouse lawn offer up foul maledictions. The wind is blowing their carefully brushed and stiffened hair out of place. Propelled by it, the occasional tumbleweed playfully interrupts their broadcasts as it bounces between the commentators and cameras. The few forlorn Klansmen isolated even amid the crowd across the street curse the wind too. It threatens to blow their pointed hoods right off their heads and reveal their true identities. Worse than that, it raises their robes like women's skirts, causing them to drop their placards and hold their arms straight down at their sides.
On the drive in this morning I'd been struck by just how much the prairie fauna surrounding Laramie is like my maternal grandfather's ranch in Argentina. There's the same sagebrush and chaparral bent by the wind toward the east, as if yearning for the sun to rise each dawn and exposing their backsides' naked roots to the fading night. There are the same surrounding high peaks capped with ice. But the town itself is nothing like my grandfather's nearest village, where idle gauchos squat on crooked, unpaved streets, and children play half-dressed in rags. This Wyoming town is even more exotic. Today Laramie probably appears strange to its longest-surviving residents. Over the past week strangers from across the nation have descended on the town with their cameras and microphones like a buzzing hoard of bright-colored locusts.
Upon entering Laramie, I drive along past the courthouse with the other rubbernecking traffic and feel something on my face that has become unfamiliar--a smile lifting the corners of my lips. It isn't really a happy smile. It's more of a head-shaking what the hell? smirk. The thick torso of my mastiff-mix leans far out the backseat passenger-side window of the ancient Land Cruiser, and he seems to be grinning too. The crowd that's gathered on the sidewalk leans away from the approaching dog's head with his great yellow teeth and ropes of saliva that hang from black lips.
I'm lucky to find a parking spot five blocks from the courthouse despite the extraordinary traffic. There I roll up the windows just enough so the beast can't reach out and cause heart attacks by licking passersby. I dust the animal's dark hair from the white shirt and khaki pants that I wear for this occasion instead of my usual tired jeans, sandals, and untucked flannel shirts. Before walking away from the truck, I pull on a navy sport coat to hide the gun that's clipped to the belt at the back of my pants. I speak softly to the dog as I cinch the tie close around my throat.
"Stay, Oso. Watch the car."
I have never seen anything like the crowd that's swarming on the well-watered lawn outside Albany County's four-story sandstone courthouse. As I wind my way through the masses toward the low steps, I can't stop looking about and feeling that same sardonic turn of my lips. It seems that all the world is here in this small, usually quiet Wyoming city of only twenty-six thousand full-time residents. I have spent time in Laramie twice before: first as a child, more than two decades ago, when my father was assigned to the nearby Air Force base, and again as a cop, just two years ago, when I performed a brief investigation here. In both my recent and distant memories the town was as colorful as any university town but generally peaceful, nothing at all like the scene that affronts me today.
From around the country there are civil rights demonstrators, victims' groups representatives, the NAACP, print reporters, television journalists, ACLU protesters, church groups, titillated tourists, and members of the Ku Klux Klan and various other absurd militias. All are talking or shouting excitedly. I can see that someone has somehow partitioned them, as uniformed deputies allow some on the court side of the street and keep others across from it. Grand Avenue, which lies in between, is lined with double-parked media vans with dish-shaped antennas that extend from their roofs. They have all come for the excitement that can only be born of a true media sensation--the trial of Kimberly Lee's killers.
Two years ago the murderers of Matthew Shepard were spared the death penalty here in a trial that was broadcast around the globe. Just a year after the pair was sentenced to life in prison for the beating death of the gay university student, while the nation was still focused on the town and the horrors its youth could commit, a new bias-inspired murder swept the headlines like a whirlwind. Another minority student, this one Asian, was raped and strangled, and then further denigrated by racist words written in her own blood. The Shepard killing had seemed an anomaly, but the Lee murder had the national press wondering if something more sinister lurked behind the facade of the state's only liberal college town. The focus on Laramie couldn't be more intense if it were viewed from one of the University of Wyoming's high-powered microscopes.
Everyone is here, I guess, but the citizens of Laramie. I imagine them at home, hiding with their curtains drawn and their shotguns loaded, praying for the wind to blow this circus away across the plains.
A disorderly mob of spectators is queued from the courthouse doors at the top of the steps down onto the sidewalk and around the corner. Each one holds a slip of paper that I assume gives him or her a seating pass for the big event. More people gather around those lucky enough to have a place in the line, arguing and pleading for a spot. Amid the crowd at the top of the steps stands one of the largest men I've ever seen, even in a state like Wyoming that breeds big men.
His shaved ebony head rises well above the throng. Those near give him space in deference to both his size and the brown county sheriff's uniform he wears. With his face tilted slightly to one side as he speaks into the radio mounted on his broad shoulder, he watches my approach.
I jostle my way up the steps toward the deputy, pardoning and excusing myself among the turmoil, with one arm extended to guide my way through. The bodies before me give way grudgingly, moving aside only after giving my face a second look. With my courtroom clothes, all-American features, and longish hair, I could be just another pushy reporter cutting in line, or a young attorney or staff member of one the parties. But my skin is a little too prematurely weathered, and there's the jagged white scar that runs from left eye to upper lip on my otherwise tan skin. They turn aside while speculating as to just what role I perform in this extravaganza.
"Special Agent Antonio Burns," the big man says when I'm near, enunciating each syllable of my title and name, "or should I call you QuickDraw? What are you doing here, man? You're just in time. Closing arguments start in fifteen minutes."
"I really hate being called that, Jones. If I see the columnist who made that up, I'm going to punch him in the nose."
He chuckles, not realizing I'm serious, and I pump the sweaty hand that swallows my own.
"Can you get me inside? I'm supposed to meet my boss, Ross McGee, in there."
The giant nods and then uses his bulk to part the crowd toward the courthouse doors. I'm pulled along in his wake. He beats his fist on the glass to draw the attention of the security officers within. When the door is cracked open by one, Jones barks, "Let him in. He's DCI." Then he grabs my arm and pushes me through.
I slip inside the building, away from the impassioned crowd and into the quiet of the cleared hallway, where there are only a few overwhelmed security guards standing anxiously by the metal detectors. I realize that these rent-a-cops probably don't know what DCI means.
"Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation," I explain to the nearest one and flash my gold shield as the detector registers my gun and shrieks in alarm.
"The courtroom's that way, sir," the guard says, pointing down the hall. I thank him and follow the point.
Inside the courtroom the bench and jury box are empty. But the front of the courtroom is bustling with activity. Where the single defense table should be there are two, one for each of the Knapp brothers' legal teams. The prosecution has only one table, which is next to the jury box. Because the County Attorney represents all the people of the state and the jurors too, he is allowed to sit closest to their box. And you don't want the defendants sitting anywhere near the men and women who will be judging them.
The courtroom itself is a surprisingly small venue for a case that has people across the nation eagerly scanning headlines and watching evening newscasts. There are only about twelve rows of churchlike hard wooden pews for the gallery. Simple white paint adorns the walls, and the only decorations are an American flag and a Wyoming flag, one on each side of the judge's bench, and the gold state seal mounted before it. A short oak wall divides the gallery from the participants.
Secretaries and paralegals gather around the lawyers in the well like cheerleaders. It's easy for me to distinguish the county's attorney from the defendants', even without the location of the tables. The prosecutor is dressed in an expensive dark suit, while the defense attorneys, in the forlorn hope of connecting with the working people on the jury, wear khaki pants, ill-matched ties, and western-cut sport coats.
My boss at DCI, Ross McGee, stands near the prosecution's table. He is also a lawyer but he's not one of the combatants in this trial. I've been told he's here simply to advise the County Attorney on the more complex legal issues that will doubtlessly be brought up on appeal, and at which time they will become McGee's and the state's responsibility. The local police and prosecutor did not seek our assistance on this case; they wanted to keep the media attention for themselves.
Ross McGee is a striking man. He's short and thick with a powerful belly that swells out of his jacket and lifts his tie into the air. The bristling white hair above his bulldog face is close-cropped, but his beard runs long past his collar. With a red Christmas hat, he would look a bit like an evil Santa Claus. Or with a horned helmet, a degenerate Viking warlord. A former Marine colonel who served five tours in Vietnam, there still emanates from him an aura of authority and potency despite his age, obesity, and poor health. His voice booms out above the murmurs from the front of the courtroom as he strikes a leg of the prosecution's table with his cane.
"Now don't you step in any shit, Karge," he tells the prosecutor. "I'm getting tired of cleaning your shoes."
The man he addresses smiles politely. I recognize him too. His austere image appears nightly on national newscasts as Nathan Karge, the current Albany County Attorney and likely the next governor of Wyoming. He has already won the primary in a decidedly one-party state. A former civil attorney who is known and respected throughout the state, he's finishing the term of the prior County Attorney, who had decided to take a breather after the Shepard trial.
Not wanting to interrupt, I lean against the wall in the back of the courtroom and watch the two men talk. From what I can hear, they are discussing the legal limitations of a closing argument.
McGee is the Deputy Attorney General of the Criminal Division, which is primarily responsible for handling the inevitable appeals to the state supreme court following criminal convictions. I work in an offshoot of that office that assists local police agencies in complex cases, investigates statewide drug distribution, spearheads multi-jurisdictional task forces, and sticks its nose into local corruption and conflicts of interest. McGee just yesterday ordered me down to this part of the state a week before I'm due at a civil hearing nearby in Cheyenne's federal courthouse. Along with the AG's office as a whole, I'm a defendant, accused of inflicting wrongful death upon three gang members there.
The order to come south a week early was delivered in the form of a phone message with McGee's usual labored breathing and terse, profane language. "Get your ass down to Laramie tomorrow! . . . Some girl, a cretin rock climber like yourself . . . she fell on her head and croaked. . . . The fucking governor wants us to look into it." Vintage McGee.
Two days earlier I'd read about the accident in the newspaper. The girl's name was Kate Danning and she fell off a cliff at a place called Vedauwoo during a late-night climbers' party.
After a few minutes I see the cane pointed my way. "Get your hands out of your pockets," McGee barks across the courtroom. "You look like a goddamn pervert!"
I withdraw one hand to scratch my cheek with my middle finger extending toward him just as the courtroom's doors burst open. Spectators and reporters scramble for prime seats among the rows of wooden pews. I quickly drop into one near where I'd been standing at the rear of the chamber.
The journalists balance legal pads on their knees while clutching pens in their hands. Many are already taking notes, despite the fact that absolutely nothing is happening other than their own entrance. They gaze around them as they scribble, trying to catch and describe the atmosphere, I guess. I don't see Don Bradshaw, the Cheyenne Observer columnist who gave me my unfortunate nickname after the shoot-out with the gangbangers in Cheyenne, so I'm saved from giving the reporters an assault on one of their own to write about. The room had seemed cavernous to me just moments before, but now it feels like a pressure cooker. The faces around me are excited. They've come for a spectacle. People jostle one another for more room on the benches.
The pressure increases when the two defendants are led in by a handful of jailhouse deputies. The Knapp brothers look small and mean next to their Wyoming-sized guards. They are clearly related, with the same slicked-back greasy blond hair, low foreheads, carefully tended wisps of facial hair, thin lips, and recessed chins. Their features and postures make them look like some less-evolved breed of humanity. Or maybe more evolved, the way things are going these days. Both wear cheap polyester suits, courtesy of the Public Defenders' Office. They walk stiffly in a sort of awkward shuffle, their knees slightly bent, and with exaggerated caution although neither wears shackles around his ankles. The law dictates that they cannot appear before the jury in any sort of restraints until a verdict is reached. But I can see through their pants the sharp outlines of the bracelike device on each of their legs. Called a Stilt, it consists of stiff Velcro cuffs above and below each knee connected with a hinged metal rod. The rods will snap straight if the wearer fully extend his legs by running, slowing him considerably and causing him to look ridiculous, like a man trying to trot while wearing stilts.
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