Cimarron Rose

Rating:
Summary: Small Town Defense Lawyer Plays Lone Ranger
Review: Cimarron Rose is a typically offbeat James Lee Burke tale, set in the small town of Deaf Smith, Texas. Defense attorney, Billy Bob Holland, is asked to take on the cases of two young men, and soon finds himself in the middle of a complex set of corrupt relationships that will not be sorted out unless he does it. The book has a fascinating story within a story delivered in the form of a journal inherited from his Great-grandpa Sam that Billy Bob reads almost daily while pursuing the case. The book has fascinating characters whose evil, blindness, and carelessness make the story develop in unexpected ways. Although the book has much violence in it, there is a genuine attempt to keep the violence within some sort of limits that makes the book more appealing.

I like books that feature significant character development, and this one does an exemplary job with Billy Bob and Lucas Smothers, who is accused of a rape and murder. These two men are very complicated but in a way that will draw you in, and cause you to root for them to keep following their ideals and dreams.

The backdrop is a crooked town, in a corrupt county, with lots of bent government types running around. Although probably no worse than a lot of other places, this book is about a sort of Texas Sodom and Gomorrah. There is a need for someone to do more than what is required, and Billy Bob takes on that role. You will find those who are satisfied with their wealthy lives just as culpable as those who are totally corrupt.

Fans of the Dave Robicheaux novels will find this one follows the general approach of those rich, complex stories.

Clearly, Billy Bob is a fellow who operates well outside the law, a sort of modern day Lone Ranger. At the same time, he can barely keep himself from going off the deep end mentally. As a result, he is sort of like a ticking time bomb, and you keep expecting him to go off. And he does.

The plot culminates in a trial that presents the kind of unexpected developments that you will recognize from Perry Mason stories.

After you finish reading this novel, you should think about when you should follow God's law, when men's laws, and when your own conscience. How would you have handled the dilemmas presented here for Billy Bob and Lucas? How could they have handled them better?

Live in the present and make a pathway for good!

Rating:
Summary: Burke begins a new series set in Texas
Review: Fans of James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux/cajun cop series now have a new series with Texas lawyer Billy Bob Holland. If this had been the first Burke book for me, I would have rated it higher.

The main plot involves Billy Bob defending his illegitimate son against a murder charge in a fishy-smelling situation involving a rich kid deviant with fetal alcohol syndrome and speed on the brain, a former football hero, DEA officers, and a sociopath named Garland T. Moon.

The inner plot involves Billy Bob wrestling with ghosts and demons from his past, namely private conversations he has with his old partner from their Texas Ranger days. There is also some mystery surrounding the death of Billy Bob's father in 1965.

Burke does an excellent job weaving all of the plot threads together, and the characters are believable. His descriptions are spare and elegant, and he has the ability provide sensory detail in a few short sentences.

One word of warning is that the cast is a rogue's gallery, like other Burke novels, and features a very flawed protaganist, but one we can root for just the same. Still, we're in some dark territory here, and Burke's writing is edgy, graphic and not for everyone.

While the book was well-written, I didn't get enough distance between Dave Robicheaux and Billy Bob Holland, who are essentially the same character. Both are men in their forties who stay in good shape, have father issues, and share similar demons in their past. The same self-righteous attitude was evident in both men. I hope that Billy Bob's voice takes a different shape in future novels of this series.

The other problem is that Burke is starting to recycle some of his details. The wealthy southerners always hold glasses wrapped with paper napkins secured with a rubber band. He's used this one a lot. There's also one where the night smells of fish spawning that's been used multiple times.

Still, this was a gripping read filled with tension on every page that made me want to know what was going to happen next.

Rating:
Summary: Hard-edged, "New West" Western...
Review: Former US Assistant DA, and Texas Ranger Billy Bob Holland rides his horse into a honkey-tonk, unfurls his lariat and loops it around the deserving torso of a woman-beating thug. He commences to drag the dude out the door for a taste of cowboy keelhauling discipline. Readers Now must be aware--like Dorothy--they're "no longer in Kansas". Courtesy of James Lee Burke's hard-edged,yet superbly literary style, our New West hero essays roles of defense attorney by day and LONE RANGER at night. Burke convinces us Deaf Smith(a town near Austin, combining resort ambience of Lake Travis; working class morphed-Yuppster Round Rock Texas, with generously violent doses of old West Tombstone)exists on planet Earth not a galaxy far away in the Final Frontier. Burke uses flashbacks to Old Frontier days describing how Billy Bob's grandfather dueled-it-out with the Doolan and Dalton gang. In recent New Frontier times, he and Texas Ranger partner L.Q. Navarro dueled-it-out with drug dealers across the boarder in old/new/middle-aged Mexico. L.Q. appears regularly as Billy Bob's mentor. A minor problem is Sr. Navarro is dead. His "ghostliness" factors not only in Burke's narrative technique but as plot detail: best friend Billy Bob accidently shot him to death during an aformentioned, vigilante-style drug bust.

This is only Setting. CIMARRON ROSE evokes old West and the New (Drug Thug)West. Billy Bob finds himself legally defending his unacknowledged son Lucas in a gruesome rape/murder case which is enhanced by a battle-array of drug dealers; bent DEA; feckless FBI agents; a formerly abused-child now border-line psychopath bent on revenge against the Bobster; some repugnant nouveau rich whose adopted son--at very least--is a sociopathic punk and (perhaps) prime candidate for the murder Lucas is framed-for.

James Lee Burke often writes like John Updike. He's got poet's command of language and mature control of complex plots. His characterizations are excellent; psychological observations ring astute and physical descriptions are striking. He's a writer's writer. If he's chosen to walk a ragged line between LITERATURE and funky, action-oriented plot boilers, SO WHAT? I'm told Burke does this trick often. If this is formula writing,it's excellent. I'd rather read about Billy Bob than Updike's RABBIT ANGSTROM anyday. Take a gander at CIMARRON ROSE. It's no New Age Flower shop tour for sure..And in this one, The Lone Ranger doesn't use silver bullets...(4 and 1/2 stars)

Rating:
Summary: Same story different setting
Review: If you have never read a Burke novel then you may like this. If you are familiar with the Robicheaux novels, then pass this one up. I like James Lee Burke's novels, but this book is just the same story and same characters with different names and in Texas instead of New Iberia, LA. Billy Bob is just Dave Robicheaux except as a small town lawyer rather than a small town cop. He has a woman partner, has semi-adopted a young ethnic child, talks to a ghost, defends the down-trodden and his father was killed in an oil company accident just like Robicheaux's father. He deals with sketchy characters from his past and has to deal with the "psychic scars" of his past as the NY Book Review put it. Sound familiar? If you have read the Robicheaux series then, of course it does. I found myself missing the antics of Clete Purcel. Same idea here: the rich and powerful screw with the down and out. Guess who wins in the end?

Rating:
Summary: Great Mystery Novel
Review: If you want a good mystery with Texas flavor and a touch of darkness - this is a great read.