James Lee Burke is an excellent writer. His prose is descriptive and poetic. However, his characters tend to have tragic flaws, often stemming from alcoholism. This early Burke story tells of the young adulthood of Hackberry Holland, the sheriff in Rain Gods. I found the first part of the book hard to handle as Mr. Holland drank constantly and engaged in stupid behavior. And what I really struggled with was that he seemed to think his behavior was good and appropriate and continued to think so even at the end of the story when he is making better choices. I still enjoyed the story because of Burke's writing, and he manages to make his very flawed characters sympathetic and even admirable as they try to be heroic and do the right thing in spite of their weaknesses.
This book is shorter than many of Burke's works, so it reads pretty quickly. I preferred Holland in Rain Gods and would recommend the Dave Robicheaux novels to new readers of Burke rather than either of the Holland books, but this one is still worth the time.
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