Dallas private eye Ed Earl Burch is an emotional wreck, living on the edge of madness, hosing down the nightmares of his last case with bourbon and Percodan, dreading the next onslaught of demons that haunt his days and nights, including a one-eyed dead man who still wants to carve out his heart and eat it.

He's also deeply in debt to a shyster lawyer who forces him to take the type of case he loathes -- divorce work, peephole creeping to get dirt on a wayward husband.

Work with no honor. Work that reminds him of how far he's fallen since he lost the gold shield of a Dallas homicide detective. Work in the stark, harsh badlands of West Texas, the border country where he almost got killed and his nightmares began.

What he longs for is the clarity and sense of purpose he had when he chased killers for a living. The adrenaline spike of the showdown. Smoke 'em or cuff 'em. Justice served -- by his .45 or a judge and jury.

When a rich rancher and war hero is killed in a suspicious barn fire, the rancher's outlaw cousin hires Burch to investigate a death the shady county sheriff is reluctant to touch. Seems this rancher crossed a lot of people who wanted him dead -- a vicious narco, land developers who believe in lethal payback, maybe the outlaw cousin.

Thrilled to be a manhunter again, Burch ignores these red flags and forgets something he once knew by heart.

Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it. And it might just get you killed.

But it's the best lousy choice Ed Earl Burch is ever going to get.