Pun Salad

I'm catching up on James Lee Burke novels. This one is no exception to his usual masterly stuff. This is his second Billy Bob Holland book. Billy Bob is a lawyer, and ex-Texas Ranger based in Deaf Smith, Texas. Like Burke's other major protagonist, Dave Robicheaux, Billy Bob is a fundamentally decent but occasionally hot-tempered hero, incessantly haunted by mistakes in his past.

The usual Burkean elements are here too: a rich but corrupt family mired in evildoing; little people with the odds stacked against them; characters with circus-freak physical deformities; characters with psychological problems that would earn you or me a quick trip to the rubber room; a touch of the supernatural. Inventive mayhem and intense psychic travail all the way through, and a whole lot of dead folks by the end.

And I don't think there's a writer alive whose descriptions can plunk you into a scene like Burke. Rodeos, drive-ins, barbecue joints, mansions: you're right there.