Bitterroot

Rating:
Summary: Wondrous landscape,....terrifying tale..........
Review: James Lee Burke brings an amazing cast of characters together in a story about good and evil. Bitterroot takes place in the beautiful lands of Montana. Doc Voss, a friend of Billy Bob Holland's asks for some assistance in his dealings with a mining company. What happens is a lot more involved than a little political action. What starts out as one concern quickly escalates into a situation that teeters on the brink of death and disaster In this story, the "bad guys" are truly evil and their interests become very personal when they target the family and friends of both Doc Voss and Billy Bob Holland. James Lee Burke brings his realistic and thoughtful style of dialogue as well as his spellbinding descriptions of the land into this gripping novel, creating a wondrous landscape as a backdrop to a terrifying tale.

Rating:
Summary: Misfits Portrayed in Elegant Prose
Review: Burke's eye sees details few of us would ever notice, and he finds words that will make you feel that you're looking at a photograph of what he just saw. His characters come to life shaped by descriptions that are both sharp and flowing and always on the mark. I still like the Dave Robicheaux stories better (not wild about Billy Bob Holland in "Heartwood"), but "Bitterroot" proves that Burke can build a winner around either character.

Burke develops more than a dozen characters well enough for his audience to feel what each is about. While the characters themselves seem real, their collective baggage and violent tendencies do take the story down a peg. Think about how the following characters might interact in a story, then discover how Burke weaves their lives together when they converge in the Bitterroot Valley:

Billy Bob Holland, lawyer from Deaf Smith, Texas now in Montana to help his friend Doc Voss. Billy Bob frequently talks with the ghost of L.Q. Navarro, the partner he accidentally killed when they were both Texas Rangers, L.Q.'s voice often warning him of peril ahead. Son Lucas and investigator Temple Carroll from prior novels show up about halfway through this one.

Doc Voss, a quiet, brainy boy from Deaf Smith who was a Navy Seal in Nam and is now a single father in Montana with strong environmentalist beliefs.

Lamar Ellison, an ex-con scum of the earth biker who's working undercover for the ATF.

Wyatt Dixon, a psycho rodeo clown just out of prison who's not afraid of anything.

Terry Witherspoon, a kid from NC who's great with a knife, was Wyatt's punk in prison and is still under his spell.

Carl Hinkle, a white supremacist who supports and manipulates Ellison, Dixon and the like.

Some ATF and FBI types looking for a group behind Oklahoma City whom they will nail at any cost.

Sue Lynn Big Medicine, the Indian girl with a dark past who is being squeezed by the ATF on an overblown robbery charge.

Cleo Lonnigan, cold hearted sharpshooting widow of an investment guy who was working with the mob and got himself and their son killed.

Nicki Molinari, the Arizona mob guy with a branch in Montana who loves baseball and peppers his victims with balls from his pitching machine rather than break their legs with a bat.

Xavier Girard the big time author writing a book about Nicki; Girard's actress wife Holly who grew up with Nicki and is still openly intimate with him.

Finally Sheriff J.T. Cain, who is often hostile to Billy Bob and Doc but may be the only other fair-minded man in the Valley.

Net, net - I love the way Burke writes and the characters he creates, but there's just a little too much evil and depravity in the plot to give it 5 stars.