In this 20th book in the 'Dave Robicheaux' series, the Louisiana
detective is on vacation in Montana, but can't get away from vicious
criminals. The book can be read as a standalone, but familiarity with
the series is a plus.
*****
Louisiana
Sheriff's Detective Dave Robicheaux is on vacation in Montana with his
wife Molly, novelist daughter Alafair, and private detective friend
Clete Purcell. They are soon joined by Gretchen Horowitz, the daughter
Clete first met when she was an adult. Gretchen, severely abused as a
child, was once a hit-woman for the mob. She's now a filmmaker, making a
documentary about oil shale drilling.
The visitors are staying at the ranch of Dave's friend Albert Hollister, a famous writer and environmental activist.
Trouble soon rears it head when someone shoots an arrow at Alafair while she's jogging.
In
addition, a local teenage girl, Angel Deer Heart, is abducted and
killed. Angel is the adopted daughter of Caspian Younger and his wife
Felicity Louviere; Angel's grandfather is Love Younger, one of the
wealthiest men in the country. As usual in Burke's books, the 'evil
wealthy family' - in this case the Youngers - harbor dark secrets and
are apparently up to no good.
Clete
Purcell also stays true to character and falls under the spell of a
beautiful young woman, this time the married Felicity Louviere. As Clete
gets older and less healthy in book after book, this trope gets
increasingly harder to accept.
Dave
comes to suspect that the perpetrator of bad deeds is the sadistic
serial killer Asa Surrette, about whom Alafair wrote a series of
scathing articles when he was in prison.
Though
Surette is officially 'dead' - killed when a prison transport was in a
fiery collision - Dave is convinced he survived and is in Montana. Dave
fears that Surette means to continue his murderous spree in Montana and
that he has Alafair in his sights.
Basically the story is about
Dave and Clete trying to stop Asa Surette while they expose the sinister
doings of the Younger family. Alafair and Gretchen are on board with
this agenda, getting into various kinds of trouble along the way.
Gretchen especially has the bad luck to meet the worst people
imaginable.
There are a plenty of additional characters in the
story: a troubled but tough rodeo cowboy, his lady friend, a local
sheriff, corrupt law enforcement officers, some vicious thugs, and so
on. There is also a prominent sub-theme about whether evil is a real,
tangible thing. Dave's frequent musings on the subject seemed a bit hazy
to me and somewhat disconnected from the story.
Burke's
ongoing characters are favorites of mine and I always enjoy visiting
with them in his books. I also liked the basic mystery premise of the
story, and even some of the sub-plots. However, there were elements of
the story that didn't come together at the end and one odd character
seemed to be completely unexplained.
All in all I enjoyed the book and would recommend it to mystery fans.
Rating: 3 stars