The first in his series of police procedurals, The Alvarez Journal, won an Edgar for Best First Mystery and introduced the hard-boiled Denver homicide detective Gabriel Villanueva Wager. Another, The Avenging Angel , was made into a feature movie, Messenger of Death, starring Charles Bronson. With Suicide Season, Burns introduced Devlin Kirk, a Denver private detective specializing in industrial security.

Burns' books are published in hardback and paperback and have been translated into a number of foreign languages. 

He is also co-editor, with Mary Rose Sullivan, of an anthology of detective stories entitled Crime Classics, and has published under the pen name "Tom Sehler." 

For several years Burns wrote a monthly mystery book review column for the Rocky Mountain News, and other of his reviews have appeared in the Denver Post, the Miami Herald, and the Washington Post. His essays have appeared in scholarly publications as well as in popular periodicals such as  The Writer. He is a contributor to Scribner's Mystery and Suspense Writers, an advisor and contributor to the Oxford Companion to Mystery, and is the host of the Starz-Encore Mystery Channel television series, Anatomy of A Mystery.