In The Moon of Red Ponies (Billy Bob Holland) - Hardcover

Burke, James Lee

4.09

3,197 ratings by Goodreads

9780752861104: In The Moon of Red Ponies (Billy Bob Holland)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0752861107 ISBN 13: 9780752861104

Publisher: Orion, 2004

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At the end of BITTERROOT, rodeo cowboy Wyatt Dixon - 'the most dangerous, depraved, twisted and unpredictable human being I ever knew' - was sentenced to sixty years in Deer Lodge Pen for the murder of a biker in the Aryan Brotherhood. Now, one year later, he's out, due to the DA's failure to disclose a piece of evidence. Among his many crimes, Wyatt once tortured Billy Bob's wife, Temple, when she was a cop. Dixon declares to Billy Bob that he's a reformed character and he needs his help in a venture to raise rodeo livestock. But how can Billy Bob believe him?

Meanwhile Johnny American Horse, a possible descendent of Crazy Horse, whose worst offences till now have been the odd bout of drunkenness and a propensity to believe his dreams, is caught carrying a gun. He tells Billy Bob he needs it for protection; in a dream he saw two men coming for him. Sure enough, those men in Johnny's dream are heading West, with Johnny as their target. Soon Johnny's in serious trouble with only one man to turn to, Billy Bob - and Billy Bob finds himself pitched into a complex battle that pits him not only against Wyatt Dixon, but against the very government he has sworn to support.

This is James Lee Burke at his compelling best: a novel defined by stunning plot twists, breathtaking suspense and a cast of unforgettable villains - a combination that has earned Burke outstanding critical praise and a bestselling readership.

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Review:

James Lee Burke's thrillers are all about regrets for sins you have to live with. In the Moon of Red Ponies is almost crowded with men trying to atone. As well as Burke's burned-out Texas Ranger, Billy Bob Holland, we have crazed rodeo rider Wyatt Dixon, the villain of Burke's earlier Bitterroot who is now trying to make up for burying Holland's wife alive. There is counter-intelligence-thug-turned-cop Darrel, a racist lout haunted by the things he did for his country, and Johnny American Horse, whose environmental activism is largely directed by visions and who is aware he has involved too many of his friends and lovers in things that may get them killed.

Burke is brilliant on these men and their inability to trust each other; he is less good at thinking himself into the heads of the book's real villains, the men in suits who find and hire killers and despoil the land. It seems odd to complain of this in a book so full of shootings and torture and desperate flights across wild country--but some of the scenes in which sinister corporations damage lives with a stroke of the pen are melodramatic in a way that is not always worthy of a writer as sensitive to nuance as Burke. --Roz Kaveney

Review:

James Lee Burke is the heavyweight champ, a great American novelist whose work, taken individually or as a whole, is unsurpassed. (Michael Connelly)

A gorgeous prose stylist. (Stephen King)

Richly deserves to be described now as one of the finest crime writers America has ever produced. (Daily Mail)

There are not many crime writers about whom one might invoke the name of Zola for comparison, but Burke is very much in that territory. His stamping ground is the Gulf coast, and one of the great strengths of his work has always been the atmospheric background of New Orleans and the bayous. His big, baggy novels are always about much more than the mechanics of the detective plot; his real subject, like the French master, is the human condition, seen in every situation of society. (Independent)

The king of Southern noir. (Daily Mirror)

His lyrical prose, his deep understanding of what makes people behave as they do, and his control of plot and pace are masterly. (Sunday Telegraph)

One of the finest American writers. (Guardian)

When it comes to literate, pungently characterised American crime writing, James Lee Burke has few peers. (Daily Express)

'Of all American crime fiction writers James Lee Burke could be described as the most literary, with his grand themes of redemption and atonement. In this .... Burke addresses the big question of the human potential to do good or evil.' (DAILY MAIL)

'Rich, lyrical narrative, peopled by ghosts and visions ... What he's really writing about, I suspect, is redemption and he does so with passion, skill and a generous heart. Read it and be refreshed.' (Philip Oakes LITERARY REVIEW)

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