Tuesday, October 6, 2009 9:44 PM CDT
Book Review: 'Rain Gods,' By James Lee Burke
Review by Juanita Sherwood
James Lee Burke frequently writes about Louisiana, with Dave Robicheaux as a detective who solves crimes with the assistance of his friend Clete Purcell. Both are troubled souls who fight their own internal demons and external ones as manifested by the evil in others.
This book, however, moves west to Texas and the main character is a new one to Burke, Hackberry Holland, who lives and works in a small town near the Mexican border. Holland is the sheriff, one with a conscience, who is greatly bothered by senseless crimes, especially those that take advantage of the weak and innocent.
The book opens with a man making an anonymous phone call to 911 to report a shooting he has purportedly heard the previous evening. Holland investigates the next day and finds that a bulldozer has been used to make a shallow mass grave where several bodies have been buried.
The bodies are young women, not Hispanic as Holland expects being so close to the border, but Asian. Holland had been in the Korean War, and the bodies of young Asian woman being interred illegally in his territory bring back memories that he would sooner forget.
Several U.S. government agencies come to the scene when word is obtained about the situation. They are upset that Holland did not call them sooner.
Holland is an attorney, no longer practicing, who used to work for the ACLU. His wife is deceased, and one of his deputies, Pam Tibbs, shows interest in him romantically, but he tries to put a stop to such ideas, partly because he feels he is too old for her.
The man who called in the tip is named “Pete.” He is eventually identified by law enforcement as Pete Flores, a veteran of the war in the Middle East, who has visible, memorable injuries that help people remember him.
Pete lives with Vicki Gaddis in a very poor home in an isolated spot in Hollister’s county. She is visited by a couple of men looking for Pete. She surmises that they are “up to no good,” and after they leave, quickly packs their meager possessions, collects her pay and quits her waitressing job, and then drives away in their vehicle that is in such bad shape that all the windows are broken out.
In the story, both criminal and law-enforcing elements spend a great deal of time trying to find both Pete and Vicki, who are not always in the same place at the same time. Both are sympathetic characters that make the reader hope for good things to happen to them.
One of the characters connected to the criminal element in south Texas is Nick Dolan, who has profited greatly and lives as gentility from his ill-gotten gains. He has a family that he loves and social status that he wants to protect.
Some of Nick’s old contacts in New Orleans try to pressure him into letting them into his businesses as part owners, but he resists as much as he can. This scenario is tied into the deaths of the women, and has an end result that is resolved rather nicely after a tense situation or two.
Burke’s plots are intriguing, and his characters flawed, but they are ones that the reader cannot help but like and pull for them to overcome the challenges coming their way. If you like mysteries/thrillers, Burke rarely fails to satisfy.
This one ranks among the best mysteries recently released. You’ll like it.
Sherwood of Charleston is a retired reading teacher.
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