| When Hackberry Holland became sheriff of a tiny Texas town near the Mexican border, he'd hoped to leave certain things behind: his checkered reputation, his haunted dreams, and his obsessive memories of the good life with his late wife, Rie. But the discovery of the bodies of nine illegal aliens, machine-gunned to death and buried in a shallow grave behind a church, soon makes it clear that he won't escape so easily.
As Hack and Deputy Sheriff Pam Tibbs attempt to untangle the threads of this complex and grisly case, a damaged young Iraq veteran, Pete Flores, and his girlfriend, Vikki Gaddis, are running for their lives, hoping to outwit the bloodthirsty criminals who want to kill Pete for his involvement in the murders. The only trouble is, Pete doesn't know who he's running from: drunk and terrified, he fled the scene of the crime when the shooting began. And there's a long list of people who want Pete and Vikki dead: crime boss Hugo Cistranos, who hired Pete for the operation; Nick Dolan, a strip club owner and small-time gangster with revenge on his mind; and a mysterious God-fearing serial-killer-for-hire known as Preacher Jack Collins, with enigmatic motives of his own.
With the FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and a host of cold-blooded killers on Pete and Vikki's trail, it's up to Sheriff Holland to find them first and figure out who's behind the mass murder before anyone else ends up dead. In this thrilling and intricate work, James Lee Burke has once again proven himself a master storyteller and a perceptive chronicler of the darkest corners of the human heart.
Annotation:
After a very long hiatus, Hackberry Holland is back. Last heard from in LAY DOWN MY SWORD AND SHIELD (1971), Hack has since decided that after running the rat race as a lawyer and a politician, he wants a quieter life. So he takes over the sheriff's office in a little town in south Texas. Things are going pretty well until nine bodies turn up. Now he's got to unravel the organized-crime connections that have left these Asian prostitutes and drug-runners dead--which means he needs to track down and protect a pair of witnesses, as well as find the moralizing vigilante known as the Preacher who kills in creepily thoughtful ways. Solving these crimes--and preventing future ones--is made all the more difficult by the waves of people moving into Hack's territory in Hurricane Katrina's destructive wake.
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Praise| "Burke spins a tale replete with colorful prose and epic confrontations....The battle of wills and wits between Holland and Collins delivers everything Burke's fans expect." 06/01/2009 "Burke fans will notice much that is familiar here--the lyricism, the minor key, the elegiac refrain--but the melody is new and haunting. And, besides you just have to love a guy with a name like Hackberry." (starred review) - Bill Ott 06/01/2009 & 06/15/2009 "Nearly every scene builds to a fine crescendo of tension...." 06/15/2009 "If James Lee Burke has the deepest regional voice in the genre--and I do believe that's so--it's because he understands those feelings that keep people connected to the places where they have, or once had, roots." - Marilyn Stasio 07/19/2009 "As always, Burke's portrayal of the ugliness of human behavior set against the higher moral standards of those who fight evil is irresistible." - Carol Memmott 07/23/2009 |
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Author Bio| James Lee Burke | | Though he began his writing career writing literary novels, James Lee Burke turned to writing popular mysteries in 1987, with a series of novels featuring New Orleans ex-cop Dave Robichaux. After his wife and father are murdered, Robichaux explores the darker sides of New Orleans from the perspective of a man who has been around the block a few times. Burke's hard-boiled prose style has earned him legions of fans, numerous bestsellers, critical acclaim, and an Edgar Award for best novel. |
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