In the Moon of Red Ponies by
James Lee Burke
pbk out June 05
(Phoenix)
at £6.99
If you've not read any James Lee Burke before, you might think a hero with
the name Billy Bob is enough to put you off. Don't let it. This is Montana, and Billy
Bob Holland is an ex-Texas Ranger. The name fits. James Lee Burke was himself
born in Houston Texas, and has apparently been, amongst other things, a pipeline
worker, social worker, reporter and college professor. He also writes a mystery series
with Cajun detective David Robicheaux. The Billy Bob Holland series began more
recently. In the Moon of Red Ponies picks up the pieces from the previous Billy Bob
story, Bitterroot.
The story opens with the incarceration of drunk native American, Johnny
American Horse. But he's more than your average native American – a strange man
with shamanistic links to his ancestor Crazy Horse. It's Billy Bob's job to get him out
of jail. Not too difficult a task this time, but then someone seems intent on fitting him
up for increasingly violent crimes. And when two killers are sent to find Johnny,
Billy Bob knows all is not right. But his own attention is distracted by the release
from jail of psychopath and killer, Wyatt Dixon. It was Dixon, a man who buried
Billy Bob's wife, Temple, alive, who Billy Bob managed to get jailed in the story
Bitterroot. In the earlier tale Billy Bob left Texas to help a friend in Montana, only to
be pursued by Wyatt Dixon. Now the psychopath is out on a technicality, and
pestering the Holland family. Billy Bob wants the assistance of the DA, Fay Harback,
but there is nothing she can do. Nor can his friend Seth Masterson from the FBI.
Still trying to help Johnny American Horse, Billy Bob crosses swords with
sheriff's detective Darrel McComb, whom he accuses of being a racist and a thug.
McComb himself is obsessed with American Horse's girlfriend, Amber Finley,
daughter of Senator Romulus Finley. Hating himself for it, he even goes to the extent
of voyeuristically observing her through binoculars. In the mean time Wyatt Dixon
actually asks Billy Bob to assist him in setting up a horse farm. He claims to be a
reformed character, now taking his chemical cocktail to keep him on the straight and
narrow. Then, Johnny is suspected of being involved I a break-in at a Government-
linked agricultural research laboratory owned by the mysterious Karsten Mabus. And
the efforts to set up or murder Johnny get worse.
James Lee Burke, who has been writing for nearly forty years - his first novel
was Half of Paradise, written in 1965 - has a most engaging style that has you gasping
for breath as you try and keep up with his pace. The galloping prose is interspersed
with nuggets of beautiful evocations of the Montana countryside. Paeans of praise to
the towering mountains and woodland. But nothing holds back the driving energy of
the story. And he makes the characters who inhabit the landscape startlingly human
in their frailties and foibles. Establishment people like Fay Harback and Seth
Masterson can't always come good when Billy Bob needs them. The introverted,
brutal Darrel McComb still has within him a sense of rightness that finally guides his
hand. And who but James Lee Burke could take Wyatt Dixon, murderer and enemy
of Billy Bob in his earlier story, and turn him believably into someone who helps
Billy Bob out in this book. To say anything more would be a spoiler - read the book
and enjoy the ride.
(
Ian Morson
Author of Falconer books and short listed for 1999 Ellis Peters Historical Crime Dagger)
