Once again my husband really enjoyed this author.

08/07/14 Reserved for Perryfran for the wishlist tag game.

Sent to perryfran as part of the wishlist tag game and the RABCK Challenge.

Received in the mail. Thanks spoiledrotten - I always enjoy Burke. Also, I am currently reading Sycamore Row by Grisham and will get it to you ASAP.

I have read a few of Burke's Dave Robicheaux crime novels and really enjoyed them. This one is a departure from those novels being a complex story about the Holland family. It starts out with 16-year old Weldon Holland having a chance encounter with Bonnie and Clyde after one of their notorious robberies. Weldon ends up putting a bullet through the car they were driving without hitting anyone but this encounter stays with Weldon for life. Ten years later, Lieutenant Holland is at the Battle of the Bulge and barely makes it out alive with his sergeant, Herschel Pine. The two happen upon a deserted concentration camp and rescue a beautiful woman, Rosita, who was hiding there. Rosita, a Jew who is also from a Communist family, ends up becoming Weldon's wife and the future for them seems bright when Herschel is able to convert a Nazi welding machine into one used for laying oil pipeline in Texas and Louisiana. But Weldon gets on the bad side of some evil anti-communist bigots who want his business and want to hide what had happened to Weldon's father years earlier. This puts Weldon, Herschel, Rosita, and Herschel's wife, Linda Gail, all in harm's way.

This was a very entertaining and engrossing story that meanders across post-war America from the oil fields of Texas and Louisiana to Hollywood where Linda Gail is posed to be a star. I have enjoyed Burke's writing and this one goes beyond any of his other novels I have read. High recommendation!

Sending to FeistyPom2Love ... a wishlist tag. Enjoy!

Thank you for the book tag! This book has been on my wishlist for awhile. I've enjoyed reading two other novels by James Lee Burke in the past.

I forgot that I had the hardback edition of this novel... I ended up downloading the Audible version of this novel. So I released this novel at a Little Free Library in Alamo, Caifornia.