Harry Shannon splits his time between writing about monsters (Night of the Werewolf) and amateur sleuth Mick Callahan (Memorial Day). Callahan is one in a long line of memorable, colorful amateur sleuths whose adventures we love to share. A licensed therapist and radio talk show host with skeletons of a ruined career and drug-alcohol addictions in his closet, he's also an ex-almost-SEAL and a bare-knuckles boxer abused by his obsessed father. The long list of flaws and near-flaws is what keeps him interestingly contradictory. He's down home, he's Hollywood. He's sensitive, he's a flaring-temper tough guy. He's both of LA and anti-LA. And he's good at dispensing psychology on the air, a sort of cowboy Frasier Crane, but he rarely manages to take his own advice.

Mick's not really a sleuth, as such. He's a knight-errant, a righter of wrongs, a defender of the weak (even if sometimes he is himself weak). He's not an investigator, but more reactionary; he doesn't drive the action, the action drives him. Shannon's deft touch makes these contradictions work, reminding us of our own. We are all slaves to our weaknesses and Callahan, he seems to be saying, is smart enough to recognize his but not always smart enough to beat them. Much more than the plot, we're drawn to Callahan because of who he is.

But the plot's engrossing, too. It's been some time since the events of Memorial Day, and Callahan thinks he's put all the death behind him. He's moved to LA and now has his own hit radio show in a bigger market, dispensing advice to the lovelorn. His own relationships are shaky at best, as proven when he's drawn into a street fight and subsequently dumped by his new girlfriend. But the fight also draws him into yet another violent case. First, his maid's nephew has been kidnapped. Then Mary, who saved his life in the previous book, calls begging for help getting away from a notorious pimp-pornographer. In the meantime, a bizarre FBI agent starts to lean on him as if he's involved in a kiddie-porn organization. Callahan reconnects with Darlene, a beautiful cop he owes big, seeking her help in the kidnapping. But, of course, there's more. The rescued Mary is soon kidnapped, Darlene's cop cousin is shot, and Callahan realizes that he's being lured somewhere for some sort of payback. And he's not one to duck a fight.

The place is Nevada's Burning Man festival (Black Rock City), a dizzying blend of sex, drugs, music, free love, and anti-establishment hedonism (as Mick Callahan sees it). It's a fascinating experiment in community and alternative radical anti-establishmentarianism, but as a recovering addict he's pretty much against it, though he has vague memories of having attended back when he was using. Drawing upon Darlene's off-the-books help, as well as that of his wealthy sponsor, and Jerry the computer expert, Callahan takes the bait and enters the ring once again. Like a boxer who absorbs an opponent's punishment then strikes back decisively when it looks as if it's all over, Callahan finds he's too late for some, just in time for others—his fallibility bears a heavy price. The climax is an explosive exclamation point to the threads which converge in the surreal setting of the festival and its paganistic ritual.

Easy readability gives Eye of the Burning Man a great part of its charm, as does the characterization. Equal parts hard-boiled, desert noir and morality play, layered with simple humanity and the occasional lecture on life and love, this new Mick Callahan novel thrives by thwarting convention to tell its well-paced story, and remaining true to its quirky characters.