Burton Gone, but His Work Lives On

Word comes via writer Patti Abbott that East Texas mystery-fictionist Milton T. Burton, author of Nights of the Red Moon (2010) and the forthcoming The Devil’s Odds, has passed away. According to the Down & Out Books Web site, Burton “was born in 1947 in East Texas and raised locally. He has been employed as a college teacher, cattleman, and political consultant. He has four grown children as well as four grandchildren. He is very much a partisan of the South.”

In addition to his four crime novels, Burton penned short stories, at least two of which are available online: “The Apprentice” and “Grassy Knoll.” Kevin R. Tipple critiqued his short-fiction collection, Texas Noir just a few months back. And a year ago, Burton composed a “How I Came to Write This Book” essay about Nights of the Red Moon for Abbott’s blog. Fellow Texas wordsmith Bill Crider once remarked that “Milton Burton writes about East Texas with wit, spice, and insight.”

After Burton’s debut novel, The Rogues’ Game, was published in 2005, Jerome Weeks of The Dallas Morning News wrote a profile of the author in which he related this delightful anecdote:

At 25, Mr. Burton already knew he wanted to write a novel someday--but didn’t start writing until he was given an old Packard Bell computer in 1996.

“I’m a poor typist,” he explains. “My writing career had to wait for the coming of word processing.”

Well, the author tried after that to make the most of the career he had always wanted. In addition to The Devil’s Odds, due out from Minotaur Books in February 2012, Burton also reportedly has another book, These Mortal Remains, coming in early 2013.

READ MORE: “East Texas Author Milton Travis Burton Dies at Age 64,” by Tim Monzingo (TylerPaper.com).