Rain Gods (2009)

Most writers who churn out roughly a book a year show the stress every now and then. Not James Lee Burke. In a rare departure from the parishes of his beloved Louisiana, he returns to the dusty flatlands of west Texas — and Sheriff Hackberry Holland — for only the second time since 1971's Lay Down My Sword and Shield. Holland, who's stumbled on the burial ground of nine massacred illegal aliens, has his hands full trying to save the crime's only witness from both the FBI (which would like to use him as bait for the killer) and the killer himself. Rain God's terrific dialogue and filigreed plot are marred only by a mystical turn of events on the very last page. A–

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