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| RAIN GODS
- Reviews |
2009
From the New York Times Book Review--M. Stasio
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 the places where they have, or once
had, roots. When Hurricane Katrina ripped through New Orleans, it swept
all kinds of people, criminals among them, out of their natural element
and into the strange foreign land called Texas. RAIN GODS (Simon &
Schuster, $25.99) is Burke's version of a range war in Southwest Texas -
a pitched battle between gangs of displaced bad guys, fighting among
themselves for the new territory against the outmatched locals.
Some of these boldly drawn newcomers, like the former owner
of a floating casino who relocated to an exclusive community in San
Antonio and now runs a sleazy skin club on the highway, are living like
"colonials in their own country". Others are stuck in hellholes like
Chapala Crossing, a rusty-dusty town on the Mexican border that takes
its visual definition from an abandoned filling station and a crumbling
church.
Hackberry Holland, the tall, taciturn sheriff - and cousin
of Billy Bob Holland, the lawyer-lawman in a Western crime series by
Burke - finds the decomposing corpses of nine Asian women buried in the
field behind the church, collectively mowed down by a World War II
machine gun and plowed under by a bulldozer. The women were prostitutes
and drug mules in an organized-crime ring run by a shadowy Russian
mobster based in Phoenix. Whoever among the crime boss's many
competitors ordered the mass murder, it was executed by the legendary
hit man Jack Collins, known as Preacher and both feared and respected
for being "a mean motor scooter and crazy besides".
Crazy he may be, but Preacher is one of Burke's most
inspired villains - violent and cruel, but also profoundly moralistic
and self-loathing, qualities that he shares with Hackberry Holland, as
he informs the guilt-haunted sheriff when they finally meet. Preacher
will kill any number of people in imaginative ways, yet spare the
foolish men and furious women who are offered to him as sacrificial
victims. But while Preacher is a treat, camped out in the desert and
howling to nameless ancient gods, you don't want to underestimate the
locals, who have their own deities to answer to. Even Preacher gets
that. "These are religious people," he says. "Disrespect their totems
and feel their wrath." Right now, the native gods are withholding their
blessings because of the killers and lowlifes who have brought the
blight. But with good guys like Holland on the job, it might yet rain
on this parched land.
From Booklist 6/1/09
Burke brings back a character from one of his early novels, Lay Down My Sword and Shield (1971). Hackberry Holland, cousin to Billy Bob Holland, star of his own series, is the
sheriff of a sleepy Texas town near the Mexican border, the last stop for the aging Hack after a tumultuous personal
life and an up-and-down career as a politician and lawyer. His downshifted lifestyle is torn asunder when Hack discovers the bodies of nine illegal aliens, buried in a
shallow grave behind a church. The trail leads to a troubled Iraq vet, who knows something about the killings, and his
country-singer girlfriend, both now on the run from various baddies who want to make sure the kids don't tell anyone what they know. Hack and his deputy, Pam Tibbs, who has a romantic interest in her boss despite his insistence that he
is much too old for her, join the chase. It will come as no surprise to Burke fans to learn that the chief baddie is a seriously bent, Bible-spouting stone killer who sees Hack as the other side of his coin, but this is no by-the-numbers retread of familiar Burke tropes. Hackberry, more so than his cousin, Billy Bob, is his own man, shaped by the
unforgiving Texas soil the way Robicheaux bleeds bayou blue, less of a powder keg waiting to explode than Dave but, in Burke's signature phrase, still stand-up all the way. 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.- Bill Ott
from PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Rain Gods James Lee Burke. Simon & Schuster, $25.95 (384p) ISBN 978-1-4391-2824-4
MWA Grandmaster Burke spins a tale replete with colorful prose and epic confrontations in his second novel to feature smalltown Texas sheriff Hackberry Holland (after Lay Down My Sword and Shield). An anonymous phone call leads Holland, a Korean vet who survived a POW camp, to the massacre and burial site of nine Thai women, a crime that brings FBI and ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) officials running. As a slew of bad guys relocated from New Orleans after Katrina grapple for advantage in new territory, mercurial killer “Preacher” Jack Collins finds plenty of work. Pete Flores, a possible witness to the massacre, and his girlfriend are targeted by Collins for elimination, and by the FBI for bait. Holland must protect the hapless Flores and his girl from both. Three strong female characters complement the full roster of sharply drawn lowlifes. The battle of wills and wits between Holland and Collins delivers everything Burke’s fans expect. (July)
FROM MC HERALD:
Rain Gods (Simon & Schuster, $25.95) revisits Hackberry Holland, retired ACLU lawyer from way back in Lay Down My Sword and Shield. A former ACLU attorney, drunkard and womanizer, Hack, now 72, has cleaned up his act as sheriff of a small south Texas border town. He's riddled with memories of his deceased wife and as a POW in the Korean War.
The machine gun massacre of nine Thai women buried behind a church turns Hack's dreams into full-blown nightmares. Hackberry and his Calamity Jane-style chief deputy, Pam Tibbs, begin the search for young, scarred Afghanistan vet Pete Flores, who witnessed the murder. Pete's on the run with his girlfriend Vicki, a part-time waitress and gifted singer.
But several nasty characters from the Jim Burke villains gallery want a word with Pete and Vicki, too. Artie Rooney, a New Orleans mobster displaced by Katrina to Galveston, is leading the charge. Contract killer Hugo Cistranos is trolling the hardpan and arroyos. Nick Dolan, a small time gangster and strip club owner, is about to lose his livelihood if Pete talks.
And the scariest of all is Preacher Jack Collins, a God-fearing psycho with a divine providence in wholesale slaughter.
Add in the FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and a pair of human pit bulls working for Preacher Jack, you've got a mesquite grilled tale right off the Burke barbecue.
Rain Gods reads like an amped up Dave Robicheaux novel, with a whiff of Cormac McCarthy thrown in. The only thing missing are the gators and Dave's lethal sidekick, Clete Purcell. Hack Holland is cut from the same cloth as Robicheaux: a stand-up guy with plenty of ghosts and guilt, a quiet, fiery temperament, and the smell of cordite on his fingertips.
Deputy Pam Tibbs is one of Burke's finest characters, as vengeful with a police sap and a .357 as she is noble in her love for a reluctant Hack.
Prepare for unexpected bloodshed, old west shootouts, and a John Ford landscape hot enough to fry your bones. Saddle up for high adventure with a new, old friend from the Jim Burke collection. Rain Gods satisfies like a tall iced tea in the middle of the Texas hardpan.
From the TIMES PICAYUNE:
It's a hard 'Rain'
James Lee Burke's latest takes place near the Texas/Mexico borderWednesday, July 15, 2009 By Susan LarsonBook editor
The landscape of southwest Texas is a harsh and unforgiving place, a perfectly bleak and appropriate setting for the battle that plays out in James Lee Burke's most recent novel, "Rain Gods." This, his 28th novel, brings back Sheriff Hackberry Holland, who first appeared in "Lay Down My Sword and Shield" and is the cousin of Billy Bob Holland, the protagonist of Burke's Montana-set series.
Hackberry Holland is in his 70s, and, like so many of Burke's heroes, has given up drinking, but not his grief over his past. He mourns his second wife, Rie, a tough liberal organizer, and misses his two sons, who have gone on to establish successful lives of their own. He has no regrets about leaving politics behind, but he is content to tilt at the windmills in his path, and in "Rain Gods," there are many.
The case begins with an anonymous phone call reporting a mass murder, and soon enough, Hackberry turns up the bodies of nine Asian women buried behind the shell of a church, baking in the sun. Were the women heading for life in America as prostitutes or were they merely drug mules? Those balloons in their stomachs suggest an answer.
Hackberry Holland soon discovers that the anonymous phone call came from Pete Flores, a veteran of the war in Iraq, who spends his days drowning his memories in mescal; he can't hide the wormlike scar on his face, but everybody knows that his back bears the real marks of his torture. Pete, Burke fans will remember, once was a young boy who was Billy Bob Holland's fishing buddy. He is far away from the wilds of Lolo, Mont., now, in the harsh Texas sun.
Pete has found love with Vikki Gaddis, an unforgettable singer of country spirituals, specializing in the songs of the Carter family; she is a woman who stands by her man. Pete took the job of driving the truck with the nine women inside and barely escaped with his life. Now, he's on the run, and Vikki is endangered as well.
Along the trail, we meet a crop of bad guys that only Burke could invent, a man named Jack "Preacher" Collins, who is as creepy a killer as Burke can imagine, and that's saying something; a Jewish gangster from New Orleans named Nick Dolan; Hugo Cistranos and Artie Rooney and Josef Sholokoff, all mobbed up in various ways.
Even the good guys offer a share of trouble. Customs agent Isaac Clawson is seeking revenge for the death of his daughter in case after case; his agenda springs from a rage within.
Finally, there's Hackberry, whose instinct for good rises again and again, despite his own skepticism -- and Pam Tibbs, Hackberry's assistant, and Maydeen Stoltz, his dispatcher, two women who are wonderfully straight-up and appealing. One of the most surprising characters is Esther Dolan, a paragon of Jewish virtue and a force to be reckoned with; when she chooses sides, it's unforgettable.
This is stock Burke stuff, of course -- the alcoholic detective; the off-again, on-again grown-up love story Holland works through with Pam Tibbs; the unbelievably creative bad guys; the spooky perfection of the landscape for the struggle. The rain gods, vanished because we no longer need them, still send their messages in precipitation that sometimes feels like sand, sometimes ice, but almost never washes the land clean.
Still, there's something so winning about Hackberry Holland, something so perfect for the times in which we're reading: "The wearisome preoccupation of the elderly -- namely the conviction that they had already seen the worst but could never pass on the lessons they had learned from it -- was not unlike Cassandra's burden, except the anger and bitterness of old people was not the stuff of Homeric epics."
Maybe not, but anger and bitterness fuel a fair amount of James Lee Burke's fiction, showing how the best and the worst of us are driven by demons -- the memories of bad family history; of wars past and present; the pull of the bottle; the furious engine that drives some to desire money or power, by whatever means; the slow, seeping poison of grief and regret. In "Rain Gods," Burke once again renders the cautionary tale he has perfected over 28 books.
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