In its aftermath, Holland encounters a vibrant cast of characters-including Anton Ling, an enigmatic woman whose home is a place of refuge to desperate immigrants, and the riveting Preacher Jack Collins, a terrifying serial killer, who had seemingly died at the end of Rain Gods. Another man, a government agent whom Krill kidnapped and planned to sell to Al Qaeda, escapes into the night. One man is tortured and dismembered by a menacing psychopath named Krill. Feast Day of Fools opens with a horrific murder in the desert. Holland is a quintessential Burke hero-deeply moral, tortured by past sins, appalled at the depravity of our fallen world, and firmly committed to justice. In this sequel to his 2009 novel, Rain Gods, Burke returns to the hard-scrabble Texas town on the Mexican border, and its contemplative sheriff Hackberry Holland. Praised by Joyce Carol Oates for “the luminosity of his writerly voice,” James Lee Burke returns with his most allegorical novel to date, illuminating vital issues of our time-immigration, energy, religious freedom-with the rich atmosphere and devastatingly flawed, authentic characters that readers have come to celebrate during the five decades of his brilliant career.Īmazon Best Books of the Month, September 2011: James Lee Burke’s impressive body of work spans five decades and includes two Edgar Award-winning mysteries-yet his 30th book, Feast Day of Fools, may arguably be his best effort to date.
But this time he and Sheriff Holland have a common enemy. The danger in the desert increases tenfold with the return of serial murderer Preacher Jack Collins, whom The New York Times called “one of Burke’s most inspired villains.” Presumed dead at the close of Rain Gods, Preacher Jack has reemerged with a calm, single-minded zeal for killing that is more terrifying than the muzzle flash of his signature machine gun. Could it be that the sheriff is so taken in by this creature who reminds him of his deceased wife that he would ignore the possibility that she is just as dangerous as the men she harbors? Ling denies having seen the victim or the perpetrators, but there is something in her steely demeanor and aristocratic beauty that compels Hackberry to return to her home again and again as the investigation unfolds. When alcoholic ex-boxer Danny Boy Lorca witnesses a man tortured to death in the desert and reports it, Hack’s investigation leads to the home of Anton Ling, a regal, mysterious Chinese woman whom the locals refer to as La Magdalena and who is known for sheltering illegals.
Still mourning the loss of his cherished wife and locked in a perilous almost-romance with his deputy, Pam Tibbs, a woman many decades his junior, Hackberry feeds off the deeds of evil men to keep his own demons at bay. Sheriff Hackberry Holland patrols a small Southwest Texas border town with a deep and abiding respect for the citizens in his care.
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