Bitterroot

Amazon.com's Best of 2001
Ex-Texas Rangers are suckers for old friends in distress, so when Vietnam vet and recent widower Doc Voss calls lawyer Billy Bob Holland from Montana with an apparently innocent invitation to visit, Billy Bob packs up and "head[s] north with creel and fly rod in the foolish hope that somehow my own ghosts did not cross state lines."

Doc has managed to alienate everyone in town, including mining interests on the Blackfoot River; a drug-running biker gang; an enclave of white supremacists, led by slimy Carl Hinkel; the local mob connection, in the person of an even slimier Nicki Molinari; and the feds, who don't want anything interfering with their pursuit of both Hinkel and Molinari. After Doc's daughter is brutally raped by three of the bikers, and those three are murdered in a particularly nasty fashion, Holland must try to clear his friend of suspicion. As he ferrets through a tangled web of coincidence and connection, Holland risks losing everything and everyone dear to him.

The wild card in the pack is Wyatt Dixon, a psychopathic ex-con who holds Holland responsible for his sister's death, and who has followed him to Montana: "[Wyatt] recycled pain, stored its memory, footnoted every instance of it in his life and the manner in which it had been visited upon him, then paid back his enemies and tormentors in ways they never foresaw."

James Lee Burke's prose alternately sparkles with a perverse insouciance ("Lamar had gotten his. Big time. Soaked in paint thinner and flame-roasted from head to foot like a burned burrito.") and glows with a muted intensity ("I closed the door and slipped the bolt and went back to sleep and hoped that the sun would rise on a better world for all of us."). The author's capacity to add depth to his characters with a few well-chosen phrases remains striking: the town sheriff walks "heavily, like a man who knew his knowledge of the world would never have an influence upon it"; a group of college boys is "suntanned and hard-muscled, innocently secure in the knowledge that membership in a group of people such as themselves meant that age and mortality would never hold sway in their lives."

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
Ex-Texas Ranger Billy Bob Holland makes his third appearance (after Heartwood and the Edgar Award-winning Cimarron Rose) in James Lee Burke's dark, sorrowful, appropriately titled new novel, Bitterroot. This time out, Burke takes Holland out of the familiar environs of Deaf Smith, Texas, and moves him to Montana, where he becomes enmeshed in an interlocking series of brutal -- and brutalizing -- events.

Ostensibly, Bill Bob Has come to Montana for an extended fishing vacation with long-time friend Tobin "Doc" Voss, a widowed Vietnam vet and a man of strong, if contradictory, principles. Voss, an impassioned environmentalist, has lobbied publicly against the incursions of a local mining corporation and has made some powerful enemies, a fact that becomes clear when a trio of drug-addled bikers are sent to rape and terrorize his teenaged daughter, Maisey. In the aftermath of that rape, the leader of the bikers is found burned to death in his bed. Doc, of course, emerges as the primary suspect, and finds himself arrested for premeditated murder.

Billy Bob Holland's subsequent investigation begins with Maisey's rape and moves steadily outward, encompassing pedophilia, organized crime, right-wing extremism, and virtually every possible combination of personal and institutional corruption, all of which stand in stark contrast to the pristine, vulnerable beauty of the Montana landscape. Participants in this grim complex of narratives include an alcoholic mystery novelist, an embittered federal agent, a psychopathic ex-con with a very personal agenda, an undercover informant with a hidden motive for murder, and a local physician who has lost both her husband and son, and whose life has collapsed beneath her insupportable grief.

At the center of all this is Billy Bob Holland himself, a fundamentally decent man who is literally haunted by a specter from his past, and who must constantly confront his "abiding anger" and his extreme capacity for violence. Like Dave Robichaux, Burke's other series hero, he is both a witness to and participant in the moral crises of the age. In Bitterroot, his urgent, eloquent narrative voice is as compelling as ever, lending depth and credibility to this disturbing, beautifully crafted book. (Bill Sheehan)

Bill Sheehan reviews horror, suspense, and science fiction for Cemetery Dance, The New York Review of Science Fiction, and other publications. His book-length critical study of the fiction of Peter Straub, At the Foot of the Story Tree, has been published by Subterranean Press (www.subterraneanpress.com).

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Set in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana, home to celebrities seeking to escape the pressures of public life, as well as to xenophobes dedicated to establishing a bulkhead of patriotic paranoia, Burke's novel features Billy Bob Holland, former Texas Ranger and now a Texas-based lawyer, who has come to Big Sky Country for some fishing and ends up helping out an old friend in trouble." "And big trouble it is, not just for his friend but for Billy Bob himself - in the form of Wyatt Dixon, a recent prison parolee sworn to kill Billy Bob as revenge for both his imprisonment and his sister's death, both of which he blames on the former Texas lawman. As the mysteries multiply and the body count mounts, the reader is drawn deeper into the tortured mind of Billy Bob Holland, a complex hero tormented by the mistakes of his past and driven to make things - all things - right. But beneath the guise of justice for the weak and downtrodden lies a tendency for violence that at times becomes more terrifying than the danger he is trying to eradicate."--BOOK JACKET.

SYNOPSIS

In Burke's first novel since the bestselling Purple Cane Road, Billy Bob Holland returns to Bitterroot Valley, Montana to help a friend battle a mining company that threatens the area's economy. What Billy Bob cannot know is that one member of the pro-mining faction is his nemesis, Wyatt Dixon, a recent prison parolee intent on exacting revenge.

FROM THE CRITICS

Book Magazine

This is the latest in Burke's relatively new Billy Bob Holland series, about an ex-Texas Ranger-turned-attorney who works in Deaf Smith, Texas. In this outing Billy Bob travels to Montana to visit friend and fellow Vietnam veteran Doc Voss, who gets in a tangle with some local bikers, embarrassing one with some fancy Asian fighting techniques. Soon, Billy Bob's best bud and favorite detective, Temple Carrol, shows up with Billy Bob's son, Lucas, who himself gets involved with an attractive Native American woman, Sue Lynn Big Medicine, who happens to be an undercover detective. The bad guys are represented nicely: There are several nasty boys, the most interesting of which is Wyatt Dixon, an ex-con and rodeo clown. Last but not least, there's L.Q. Navarro, the ghost of Billy Bob's best friend and partner whom Billy accidentally shot and killed. Navarro, always striking a movie cowboy pose and twirling his hat, occasionally shows up offering counsel. Billy Bob always has a question for his old friend about how to fix things, and, in this story, there's plenty that needs fixing. But who cares? After all, it's James Lee Burke in time for summer. —Randy Michael Signor (Excerpted Review)

Library Journal

How many bad guys can you fit into one crime novel? Too many, in the case of Bitterroot, Burke's latest Billy Bob Holland episode set in Missoula, MT. Violent bikers, West Coast mobsters, paramilitary types, indifferent agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and corrupt mining company personnel all figure into this rather confusing and disjointed plot. The abridged format probably aggravates the problem. As usual, the author paints vivid pictures: his descriptions enable listeners to see the Montana scenery and feel emotions with the characters, who are interesting and complex. Narrator Will Patton effectively captures the mood of the book. Burke fans will want this, despite its flaws. Recommended for suspense/ mystery collections where Burke is popular. Christine Valentine, Davenport Univ., Kalamazoo, MI Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

AudioFile

Billy Bob Holland, attorney-at-law and ex-Texas Ranger, is vacationing in Bitterroot, Montana, at the home of longtime friend Doc and his daughter, Maisy. As they enjoy the beautiful landscape, Wyatt Dixon, a sadistic killer, is released from jail in Texas and arrives in Montana to harass Holland and seek revenge. Rape, murder, and revenge haunt this mystery as Burke's creations grow from caricatures to full-bodied characters. Will Patton's soft Southern intonation hides the power and brutality of the characters at the same time that it brings Burke's vivid descriptions to the fore. The intermingling of the beautiful and the horrific adds to the wonder that such a place of peace has violence and murder lurking beneath its surface. M.B.K. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews