For today’s whistle stop on the Partners In Crime Tours promotion of my latest hard-boiled Texas crime thriller, fellow author Darcia Helle asked me to tell her about that rascal Ed Earl Burch for her Ask The Author feature on Instagram.

Here’s what I told her.

❝Ed Earl Burch is a magnificent train wreck, a cashiered Dallas murder cop who spent twenty years wandering the peephole wilderness of a private eye, longing for the sense of purpose and higher calling he got from the badge he lost.

He’s older and more battered than ever. But he still has the instincts and savvy moves of a manhunter. And he’s finally been given the gold shield of a D.A. investigator, working in the stark desert mountains of West Texas with a renewed sense of legitimacy.

Life as a resurrected lawdog isn’t all Burch hoped it would be. Too many years living like a semi-outlaw. But he’s on the trail of a serial killer, a vicious ex-con who murdered a woman with whom Burch once had a one night stand. With a badge on his gun belt and revenge in his heart, Burch is right where he wants to be.

Burch is tough, flawed, reckless and profane. He’s utterly human. He’s not Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe — he’s more angst-ridden and tortured than those guys.

He’s Columbo without the caricature — people he goes up against underestimate him and he makes them pay for that mistake.❞