Clinton McKinzie

FIFTH NEWSLETTER * OCTOBER 2005

Dear Friends and Fans of the Burns Brothers,

I'm busy finishing Book # 6. No, Antonio, Roberto, and Mungo are not at work this time, but I promise exciting action in this new stand-alone novel and a return to the Burns series soon. The new novel will include some familiar themes, but will also introduce some new ones and hopefully take the reader along on a very different kind of adventure.

Along with many hours of writing and day-dreaming and re-writing, I've been doing research for this and future books. A spring of backcountry skiing and ice climbing on Rocky Mountain peaks prepared me well for getting chased off Mt. Rainier's Liberty Ridge by avalanches (and provided some great material for a future big mountain ski novel).

With summer came rock climbing, kayaking, time with my family, and lots more writing. Invitations to the Sun Valley Writers Conference, Colorado Book Awards, and Bouchercon 2005 (a convention for mystery writers) motivated me enormously. I came away from those events determined to write better and more widely.

In addition to completing my stand-alone novel, this Fall and Winter I'll be training hard for a return expedition to the Arctic in February. A long-term project of mine has been to make the second crossing of the Richardson Mountains in winter (first crossed by an anonymous killer in 1932, chased by dog teams of Mounties and a plane flown by a WWI fighter ace) and write about how the North has changed since the days of Jack London and Robert Service.

I hope you find the time this Fall to read, get outside, and chase your own dreams.
- Clinton .................................................................................... October 2005

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To find out more about the Arctic adventure's purpose and Clint's preceding quest in that region, check out the Madness article on the website.
The first four newsletters can be found there, too.