Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Jul 2013
560 pages
Genre: Thrillers
Publication Information
Louisiana Sherriff's Detective Dave Robicheaux and his longtime friend and partner Clete Purcel are vacationing in Montana's spectacular Big Sky country when a series of suspicious events leads them to believe their lives - and the lives of their families - are in danger.
In contrast to the tranquil beauty of Flathead Lake and the colorful summertime larch and fir unspooling across unblemished ranchland, a venomous presence lurks in the caves and hills, intent on destroying innocent lives. First, Alafair Robicheaux is nearly killed by an arrow while hiking alone on a trail. Then Clete's daughter, Gretchen Horowitz, whom readers met in Burke's previous bestseller Creole Belle, runs afoul of a local cop, with dire consequences. Next, Alafair thinks she sees a familiar face following her around town - but how could convicted sadist and serial killer Asa Surette be loose on the streets of Montana?
Surrette committed a string of heinous murders while capital punishment was outlawed in his home state of Kansas. Years ago, Alafair, a lawyer and novelist, interviewed Surette in prison, aiming to prove him guilty of other crimes and eligible for the death penalty. Recently, a prison transport van carrying Surette crashed and he is believed dead, but Alafair isn't so sure.
"Starred Review. [A] powerful meditation on the nature - and smell - of evil...even as the stomach roils, the fingers keep turning the pages because the much-honored Burke...is a master storyteller." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. [E]vil comes in a more chilling, vaguely supernatural form - depravity beyond sociology - giving these novels a darker, more mythic tone ... but it works, enveloping the reader in the visceral terror of the moment." - Booklist
"Burke produces his most sharply focused, and perhaps his most harrowing, study of human evil, refracted through the conventions of the crime novel." - Kirkus
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
James Lee Burke is a New York Times bestselling author, two-time winner of the Edgar Award, winner of the CWA Gold Dagger and the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière, and the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts in Fiction. He has authored forty novels and two short story collections. He lives in Missoula, Montana.
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