Whether he's writing about the Louisiana Bayou Country (in his Dave Robicheaux books) or the Texas hill towns around Austin (in his series about former Texas ranger Billy Bob Holland), James Lee Burke has deep roots in the American soil that link him to some of the great adventure writers of the past such as Jack London and Mark Twain. Like them, Burke writes novels illustrating how failure shapes a man much more than success does.

Central to Burke's second Billy Bob novel (Cimarron Rose was his first) is Wilbur Pickett. Wilbur had a brief moment of glory as a rodeo cowboy before sliding into a downward cycle of luckless enterprises. He ends up laboring for a wealthy family, the Dietrichs, in the Texas town of Deaf Smith. The Dietrichs accuse Wilbur of stealing some bearer bonds, and Billy Bob--now a defense attorney--reluctantly take his case. He is hesitant (because he idolizes Peggy Jean Dietrich), and for good reason: Billy Bob discovers that her husband Earl may be involved in shady, even violent, business practices.

Other ghosts from the past also haunt Billy Bob: he accidentally killed his former partner on a drug raid in Mexico and still hears his voice. And then there's Holland's illegitimate son Lucas, who is growing up with problems of his own. The weight of all this back-story might overwhelm a lesser writer, but Burke manages to make it seem as natural as the soft wind that stirs the tumbleweed in the town of Deaf Smith. --Dick Adler


Amazon.com Audiobook Review
Actor Will Patton gives a quirky performance in James Lee Burke's intricately layered story. Following his earlier novel, Cimarron Rose, Burke returns to Deaf Smith, Texas, offering his reluctant hero, defense attorney Billy Bob Holland, another shot at redemption. Representing a local loser caught in a web of lies, Holland faces Earl Dietrich, an unwelcome newcomer whose money, influence, and condescending attitude rub the lawyer against the grain: "There was nothing directly aggressive about Earl, but his conversation always had to do with himself, or what he owned." Patton narrates wonderfully, using the slow scratch of his voice and expert pacing to unravel Burke's modern-day mystery. Accentuated with musical transitions and subtle sound effects, the excellent narration and evocative writing render Heartwood an intriguing and enjoyable listen. (Running time: 5 hours, 4 cassettes) --George Laney


From Publishers Weekly
Burke's newer series hero, Billy Bob Holland (Cimarron Rose, 1997), could have been separated at birth from Burke's long-time protagonist, ex-New Orleans cop Dave Robicheaux. Although Holland is a lawyer in the rolling hill country north of Austin, Tex., he shares Robicheaux's sensibilities: he's brutally honest, haunted by his past, kind to children, protective of the underdog, a lover of the beautiful country in which he lives. Most of Burke's villains are arrogant millionaires; here, the dark heart belongs to Earl Deitrich from Houston, who spread his money around the town of Deaf Smith and married the prettiest girl, Peggy Jean Murphy, Holland's high-school sweetheart. Deitrich's pervasive evil extends from threatening Kippy Jo and Wilbur Pickett into ceding him the oil-rich Wyoming property Kippy Jo inherited from her grandfather, to arranging the false arrest of a business victim, to arson and murder in an alliance with a San Antonio Chicano gang. Meanwhile, Deitrich's insolent son Jeff elopes with the sister of the gang's leader; their breakup places Holland's own, illegitimate son in peril. Despite a circuitous, often confusing plot, the novel compels for its lush portrayal of exquisite countryside; its beautifully composed, mood-setting scenes that pace the action; and the leisurely introductions that give dimension to the many eccentric characters. At one point, a Deitrich victim sums up a consistent Burke theme: "Law punishes a poor man. Rich man don't have to account." Holland agrees, but succeeds in turning the tables in this rewarding novel. Major ad/promo; author tour. (Aug.) FYI: Cimarron Rose won the 1997 Edgar Award for Best Novel. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Burke's Billy Bob Holland is back, defending loser Wilbur Pickett against accusations of having stolen from powerful Earl Dietrich.Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Marilyn Stasio
...a bruising narrative...


From AudioFile
Many outstanding audiobook narrators seem to approach the portrayal of main characters as though they are real people. Will Patton's Billy Bob Holland is such a case. Patton infuses Holland's Texas defense attorney with a gruff yet educated personality. At the same time, the supporting characters are brought to life with equal care. The result is a one-man production that seems as rich as cinema. This film-like quality can also be attributed to Burke's crafted prose, which is imbued with boundless detail. R.A.P. (c) AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
The second entry in Burke's new Billy Bob Holland series, following Cimarron Rose (1997), exhibits many of the author's strengths: lyrical prose, an elegiac tone, and a complex, tormented hero whose attraction to violence surfaces under the guise of protecting the weak. This time Billy Bob, Texas Ranger turned lawyer in Deaf Smith, Texas, tangles with a classic Burke villain: the rich guy whose polished veneer masks a lifetime of brutality. Complicating matters are Billy Bob's still-smoldering attraction to the rich guy's wife and a West Side Storylike rivalry between Mexican American gang members and the dissolute sons of the town's wealthy class. "You live with ghosts," Billy Bob's friend tells him, referring to his inability to let the past go. Yes, he does, and so does Burke, whose mingling of past and present usually gives his books a mythic power and a tragic scope. This time, however, the ghosts get in the way: too many echoes to previous books, both Cimarron Rose and the Dave Robicheaux novels, and too much similarity between heroes dull the emotional impact of the story rather than enhancing it. Still, this is a strong novel on its own terms, if a mild disappointment to longtime Burke fans. Bill Ott


From Kirkus Reviews
A second rangy Texas crime opera (Cimarron Rose, 1997) from the Edgar-winning chronicler of bayou detective Dave Robicheaux. This time out, Deaf Smith attorney Billy Bob Holland is handling what looks like a little case: the defense of Wilbur Pickett, a resounding flop who's been accused by local Croesus Earl Deitrich of stealing $300,000 in bearer bonds and an antique watch. But nothing ever stays little for long in Burke's monumental novels, and this case simmers with rumors that the watch rightly belonged to rolling-stone Skyler Doolittle; that Deitrich accountant Max Greenbaum was at the point of challenging his boss's story when he was killed by gang-bangers in Houston; and that the power behind the dangerous games of a Deaf Smith gang called the Purple Hearts is Deitrich and his gay-bashing gay son Jeff. Billy Bob, still haunted by his high-school fling with Deitrich's wife Peggy Jeanan affair she seems indecently eager to resumecan't swing a dead cat around his homestead without hitting other predators and the little people they prey on. No sooner has rascally Deitrich pilot Bubba Grimes offered to give evidence against Deitrich than he breaks into the home of Wilbur's blind wife Kippy Jo, and she's facing murder charges for shooting him. And when Skyler, hustled into custody by another Deitrich plot, takes it on the lam, his escape ensnares both the fellow-convict who helps him and the sadistic deputy bent on tracking him down. It's all perfectly familiar to Burke's legion of fans, of coursefrom the ancient romance with the spoiled rich girl to the corruption of wealth and power to the violence seething inside gang-bangers and heroes alikeand it's all done to a turn. Forget Raymond Chandler. The obsessive return of Burke's ambitious themes, together with his characters' inexhaustible capacity for courage, tenderness, and rage, makes him the Faulkner of the American crime novel. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
Critical acclaim for James Lee Burke and the Billy Bob Holland Series:

"Burke is a master at setting mood, laying in atmosphere, all with quirky, raunchy dialogue that's a delight."
--Elmore Leonard

"Billy Bob Holland is as angst-ridden and morally shell-shocked as Dave Robicheaux ever was, but like Robicheaux, Holland's moral compass always points to true north...Don't miss out."
--Rocky Mountain News

"Burke [is] one of the best writers of our time.  His plots build tension to such a pitch that it tempts one to rush through his books.  But his writing demands that his works be savored."
--Denver Post

"Burke is known for the lush bayou cadences that give solid flesh to his longtime series hero, deputy sheriff Dave Robicheaux, and this prose style moves easily to the steamy precincts of southeast Texas."
--Chicago Sun-Times


From the Hardcover edition.


Review
Critical acclaim for James Lee Burke and the Billy Bob Holland Series:

"Burke is a master at setting mood, laying in atmosphere, all with quirky, raunchy dialogue that's a delight."
--Elmore Leonard

"Billy Bob Holland is as angst-ridden and morally shell-shocked as Dave Robicheaux ever was, but like Robicheaux, Holland's moral compass always points to true north...Don't miss out."
--Rocky Mountain News

"Burke [is] one of the best writers of our time.  His plots build tension to such a pitch that it tempts one to rush through his books.  But his writing demands that his works be savored."
--Denver Post

"Burke is known for the lush bayou cadences that give solid flesh to his longtime series hero, deputy sheriff Dave Robicheaux, and this prose style moves easily to the steamy precincts of southeast Texas."
--Chicago Sun-Times


From the Hardcover edition.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
Two years ago, James Lee Burke published , an unexpected departure from his popular Dave Robicheaux series — to my mind, the best long-running series of suspense novels in recent American fiction. The change, expected or not, was obviously beneficial: Cimarron Rose became a national bestseller and went on to win the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award as Best Novel of 1997.

In Cimarron Rose — and in its newly published sequel, Heartwood— Burke has shifted his focus from the bayou country of Louisiana to the fictional small town of Deaf Smith, Texas, and has replaced Dave Robicheaux with the equally angst-ridden Billy Bob Holland, a defense attorney and former Texas Ranger who carries with him a host of personal demons, a large measure of unresolved guilt, and an extreme, barely repressed capacity for violence. As anyone familiar with the Robichaux series will realize, these are the classic characteristics of a James Lee Burke hero.

Heartwood also invokes a classic James Lee Burke theme: the poisoning of the American heartland by the forces of ignorance, brutality, expediency, and greed. In Heartland, these forces are embodied by Earl Deitrich, the richest and most desperate man in Deaf Smith. Deitrich — who is married to the first great love of Billy Bob Holland's life, the beautiful and unattainable Peggy Jean Murphy — has managed to squander, leverage, or gamble away the lion's share of a family fortune that an earlier generation of Deitrichs acquired by trafficking in the diamond mines oftheBelgian Congo and by enslaving and exploiting the Congo's native population. Earl Deitrich, in conjunction with a local Mexican-American youth gang called the Purple Hearts, has resorted to a sleazy series of scams in order to maintain his accustomed cash flow: enticing friends and business acquaintances into high-stakes poker games, which are then held up at gunpoint; torching his own vacant building in downtown Houston, an act that results in the deaths of four firemen; and accusing a down-on-his-luck ex-rodeo star of robbery, then presenting his insurance company with a vastly inflated claim for the stolen items.

Set against Deitrich and his various schemes is embattled defense attorney Billy Bob Holland, who is forced to contend, simultaneously, with a number of related issues: the depredations of Deitrich's son Jeff, a teenaged sociopath with deep-seated sexual problems and a pronounced sadistic tendency; his residual feelings for the still beautiful, still unattainable Peggy Jean Deitrich; his difficult relationship with his illegitimate son, Lucas; and his own long-standing propensity for meeting violence with violence. As the story progresses and the tension between opposing forces steadily increases, the atmosphere in Deaf Smith gradually ignites in a series of explosions that leave several people dead and which climax with a hallucinatory encounter between father and son, an encounter that ends the local domination of the Deitrich family in an ironic, and tragic, fashion.

Despite its relatively new venue, Heartwood is immediately recognizable as the work of James Lee Burke. It is, first of all, a densely observed book, filled, in typical Burke fashion, with amazingly detailed portraits of the people, places, and things that, taken together, make up the world of Deaf Smith, Texas. Burke, as always, misses nothing. His sense of place is nothing short of astonishing, and his evocation of the beauties of the natural world — in this case, the hill country north of Austin — is powerful, poetic, and absolutely convincing.

Like so much of Burke's earlier work, Heartwood is also a novel in which the lovingly detailed physical world is constantly interpenetrated by the world of the spirit, a world in which ghosts speak, psychic visions reveal hidden truths, and the door between different levels of reality occasionally swings open. Burke has always managed this delicate balancing act with great resourcefulness (see In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead for a particularly striking example of this tendency), and Heartwood continues this idiosyncratic tradition in typical high style.

With two Billy Bob Holland novels under his belt, Burke has effectively launched an alternate series of suspense novels that may well rival the Robicheaux books in both quality and popularity. Heartwood, like the novels that preceded it, is the work of a real writer, a man with a dark, sorrowful vision of a violent, self-destructive society. It confirms James Lee Burke's position as one of the preeminent crime novelists of late-20th-century America.

—Bill Sheehan

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Heartwood is a kind of tree that grows in layers. And as Billy Bob's grandfather once told him, you do well in life by keeping the roots in a clear stream and not letting anyone taint the water for you. But in Holland's dusty little hometown of Deaf Smith, in the hill country north of Austin, local kingpin Earl Deitrich has made a fortune running roughshod and tainting anyone who stands in his way. Billy Bob has problems with Deitrich and his shamelessly callous demeanor, but can't shake the legacy of his passion for Deitrich's "heartbreak-beautiful" wife, Peggy Jean.

When Holland takes on the defense of Wilbur Pickett -- a man accused of stealing an heirloom and three hundred thousand dollars in bonds from Deitrich's office -- he finds himself up against not only Earl's power and influence, but also a past Billy Bob can't will away.

SYNOPSIS

Heartwood is a kind of tree that grows in layers. And as Billy Bob's grandfather once told him, you do well in life by keeping the roots in a clear stream and not letting anyone taint the water for you. But in Holland's dusty little hometown of Deaf Smith, in the hill country north of Austin, local kingpin Earl Deitrich has made a fortune running roughshod and tainting anyone who stands in his way. Billy Bob has problems with Deitrich and his shamelessly callous demeanor, but can't shake the legacy of his passion for Deitrich's "heartbreak-beautiful" wife, Peggy Jean.

When Holland takes on the defense of Wilbur Pickett -- a man accused of stealing an heirloom and three hundred thousand dollars in bonds from Deitrich's office -- he finds himself up against not only Earl's power and influence, but also a past Billy Bob can't will away.

FROM THE CRITICS

Entertainment Weekly

Burke draws you into every dark, intimate corner of the small town of Deaf Smith, Texas...you'll be sorry to leave.

New York Daily News

Among the best of Burke's novels...As the next-to-last chapter opens, there are a half-dozen loose plot strands to untangle. Burke does it, and he does it without betraying all the stuff that went before.

New York Times Book Review

Burke is a severe moralist but his tough hide soften like lambskin when he turns to oddballs, outsiders, and natural-born losers. Adopting the vision of these social outcasts...Burke shows us wonders.

Ann Prichard - USA Today

Heartwood is an action-laden legal thriller with evil oilmen, psychotic gangbangers, hapless cowboys and enough dadburn varmints to fill a hoosegow.

Publishers Weekly