Audiobook Review: Rain Gods by James Lee Burke

Elegiac atmospherics interrupted by grotesque cruelty mark Rain Gods by
James Lee Burke, read by Will Patton, and reviewed by Star Lawrence.

Hackberry Holland is an old man, sheriff in a small South Texas town, but a former politician and womanizer. He lives on a little ranch with two frisky horses, overhung with sky, weather, and nature of every description. And you will get the descriptions, as any James Lee Burke fan knows. No tinted sunrise or bruised thunderhead leaping with lightning goes unnoticed.

But trouble has come to town and in the form of “Preacher” Jack Collins, a mercurial killer on a mission, and his mission at one point has involved machine-gunning nine Thai women brought to town for the purposes of prostitution. Hackberry dredges them up from their shallow rest behind an abandoned church and takes it personally.

The theme is “unlikely heroes,” which as the book unwinds, include a young Iraq vet, his singer girlfriend, a pudgy strip club owner, his wife, and of course, Holland himself. The irony is that even “Preacher” Collins does not behave as a depraved killer should.

Will Patton is the perfect reader for Burke books, with his sleepy, Southern voice and reassuring tone even in the midst of the most depraved scenes.

No country for old men? This is the perfect country for old men who have learned a thing or two and grown some principles. Young men, too.

Star Lawrence owns a recession coping website called Do the Hopey Copey (http://hopeycopey.blogspot.com). She can be reached at jkellaw@aol.com.