Bitterroot

I have 1st editions of everything Jimmie Lee Burke has written and have enjoyed my impressions of this outwardly gentle and private man from his readings at book signings. Authors can't always be on target, this book isn't. Yet while the book doesn't really hit its mark like "Purple Cane Road", it's a lot better than some of the other drek out there that won't get this close on their best day. Don't waste your time with the movie of Robicheaux's early exploits. That said. . . .
Billy Bob Holland, a Deaf Smith Texas attorney visits an old Texas neighbor Doc. Voss in the Bitterroot Valley in Montana. This is the second time Burke has written about this amazingly beautiful part of the West. I preferred the previous story "The Lost Get-Back Boogie" both for the story and descriptions of Montana.
The "mystery" is who killed an undesirable biker "brain dead misogynists" that Doc Voss had recently damaged in a fight, resulting in Doc's arrest and need to go to trial. The mystery becomes less and less germane to the story as we guess early on who the murderer is.
Why Do These People Talk to Each Other This Way & why do they take it when being addressed in such offensive fashion? I live in the West and normally peaceful people would not talk this way to anyone unless armed and ready to fight, certainly not every waking moment. The characters in Dave Robicheaux's world in Southern Louisiana talk this way; it's a Burke trademark of dialogue but it's losing it's appeal. Perhaps it's meant to be abstract. Normal conversation in which people reflect a bit more beforehand, and are not trying to offend or hurt someone's feelings would be welcome. Maybe the intention towards the other person in all the book's conversations is expressed early on in the book by Cleo Lonnigan "Sometimes if you confess your real thoughts, people will be afraid of you." The protagonist, Billy Bob says to his romantic interest "With regularity I say the wrong things to you, I just don't want to do that anymore." Yet it seems until the very end, he doesn't change saying "the wrong things" to her and everyone else in the book.
The book becomes overpopulated with characters, many of whom follow Billy Bob to Montana, including Billy Bob's 18 year old son, a potential girl friend and a very well drawn villain who speaks in an amusing but unlikely fashion. Some of the superfluous characters in the story include BATF agents. Their involvement appears to be an attempt to make a connection between the Oklahoma City bombing and a militia group in the area. That plot detour goes nowhere and the three agents seem to be acting in an unlikely renegade fashion.
Doc Voss is not developed very well and just about everyone seems to have a deathwish based on their actions. The overriding current is not found where everyone wants to fish, it's made up of violence. Just about everyone is a whole lot more self-destructive than the people I've encountered in my 56 years. When I've found people like them, they sure didn't concentrate in one place like they do here. As a minor character says to Billy Bob "You must put away your violence, sir. You will never have peace until you do. Until that day comes, a minister such as I will only be a seashell echoing in the wind." "Seashell echoing in the wind"? How come I don't know anyone that talks like that?
I have to wonder if Robicheaux/Holland are just wearing out. The sheriff is well described, especially when he "walked away heavily, like a man who knew his knowledge of the world would never have an influence on it." The rest of the characters confirm Billy Bob's observation "it's presumptuous to assume a common moral belief governs us all."
In addition to beautiful descriptions of the Montana scenery and wildlife, most of which resonate & delight, there are enjoyable and startling for their unadorned clarity, descriptions of character's passage of emotions. "Eventually he would forgive Sue Lynn, not at once, not by a conscious choice or arriving at a philosophical moment, but instead one day he would look back through the inverted telescope of time and see her as possessed of the same moral frailties as himself and hence, in memory, an acceptable part of his life again." It's passages like that which will keep me going back to Jimmie Lee Burke.

"Bitterroot" by James Lee Burke, is another in his Billy Bob Holland series: Billy Bob being a former Texas Ranger, currently an accredited Texas attorney. After a few Texas adventures/misadventures in earlier Burke books, Billy Bob hereby begins his part of the year relocation to Montana, as did his creator. Mind you, a reader can't easily distinguish between Billy Bob, and Dave Robichaux, Burke's New Orleans detective. Only difference I see is that Billy Bob is more accepting of the supernatural. Furthermore, as a rule, I prefer the Robichaux books. Burke is a New Orleans man, and his language in describing his native turf, is frequently superb, deeply-felt. Descriptions in the Texas and Montana books, while very good, just don't rise to that level.

At any rate, Billy Bob goes to Montana to help out his old friend "Doc" Voss, who's getting himself into trouble. Of course, Billy Bob being the man he is, he helps Doc get himself into deeper trouble. Add to the stew Wyatt Dixon, just released from jail in Texas, and Montana-bound: he's got some issues with Billy Bob. Then there are some mafia types, some bikers, some environmental nutters, some pedophiles, a downbeat sheriff, an Indian or two, Billy Bob's short-term love interest. A gold mining company dumping cyanide into a river. Billy Bob's illegitimate son and private investigator, up from Texas. A famous, alcoholic writer, and his famous, beautiful, cocaine-sniffing actress wife. Also some feds, still looking for instigators of the Oklahoma City bombing of the federal Alfred P. Murrah building, and some of the militias at which the feds are looking.

Can't forget L.Q. Navarro, Billy Bob's former Texas Ranger partner, whom he accidentally gunned down while the two of them were having fun killing drug dealers in Mexico, leaving playing cards in their mouths. For a dead guy, L.Q. sure has a lot to say. So it's quite a stew, some of the ingredients being readily recognizable to regular readers of Burke; some of the ingredients being readily recognizable cliches of the genre.

Still, Burke's writing is brawny. He gives this line to Cleo Lonnegan, short-term love interest: "Pacifists in Montana get about the same respect as vegetarians and gay rights advocates." He describes the atmosphere of the state: "Montana was filled with ghosts. Those of Indians massacred on the Marias River, wagoners who died of cholera and typhus on their way to Oregon, the wandering spirits of Custer and the soldiers of the Seventh Cavalry, whose bodies were sawed apart with stone knives and left on the banks of what the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne called the Greasy Grass."

Finally, despite all the criticisms of the book that I've just leveled, Burke is able to build to a strong emotional climax. And his sucker punch knocked me out.

In Bitterroot, the Billy Bob Holland and Dave Robicheaux characters become very similar. The stylish differences between them introduced in Cimarron Rose are almost entirely missing here. If you like the most violent and vicious of the Robicheaux novels of good versus evil, you will find Bitterroot equally appealing. If you get tired of reading about disgusting crimes and abuse of power against women, children, and the innocent, you will find much of the detail of this book repulsive. I graded the book down for having overdone those qualities and for having abandoned the story within a story element for developing Billy Bob's character that made Cimarron Rose so fascinating.
Billy Bob Holland is taken temporarily away from his normal haunts in Deaf Smith, Texas to the apparently tranquil, rural setting of Montana, near Missoula. His friend, Doc Voss, has given Billy Bob an invitation for a visit of indefinite length. Packing up his fishing gear, he hopes that ghosts don't cross state lines. But they do. However, the spirit of his old Texas Ranger partner, L.Q. Navarro, isn't present as often here as in the other Billy Bob Holland novels, and mainly plays the role of clue giver. Once there, Billy Bob finds that Doc Voss has everyone in an uproar. Voss is challenging the gold miners for dumping arsenic into the land. He takes on the local militia. Voss also runs afoul of those who just want to keep things peaceful.
Matters are soon complicated by the arrival of a nemesis for Billy Bob, Wyatt Dixon, who has just been released from county jail in Texas. Dixon left behind a drawing of a wheelbarrow full of severed heads . . . one of which belonged to Billy Bob. "I don't know him, Sheriff," replies Billy Bob to the warning. Dixon is the brother of a client of Billy Bob's who smothered her children. Dixon blames Billy Bob for her early death while in prison. Dixon soon lets Billy Bob know that he is in jeopardy, as well as those he loves and cares about.
The rest of the slimy characters aren't nearly as interesting or dangerous as Dixon. They include members of a biker gang, the local militia types, celebrities, money launderers, and aggressive law enforcement officers.
Soon Temple Carroll, his investigative assistant, and Lucas, his son, arrive for a spot of vacation, and are drawn into the conflict. If you like Temple Carroll and Lucas from earlier novels, you will be pleased to see both of their characters developed further in Bitterroot.
As crimes and threats bandy about, the dangerous situation takes on the element of a classic mystery. Doc Voss becomes suspect number one for many of the crimes, and Billy Bob begins to represent him. However, Billy Bob draws more on his Texas Ranger experience than his legal skills. The resolution is an interesting one in which Billy Bob uses his understanding of the psychology of each villain to set them in conflict with one another.
Unlike Cimarron Rose, there is no brilliant courtroom drama in this book.
Billy Bob also comes to terms with some of his guilt, and starts to connect to other people in new ways.
Phrase crafting is the strength of the book. Mr. Burke continues to have a way with words that can turn even horror into beautiful prose. In the process, he transforms everything he imagines into something unique to share with you. Without the beautiful writing, this clunky plot and gratuitous ugliness would be at best a two star book.
After you read this book, ask yourself how many of your problems are created by yourself. In this book, Doc Voss clearly attracts lots of evil-doers by his own actions. How could Doc Voss have accomplished more and risked less? What are the lessons for your life?

This is a great book. Texan Billy Bob Holland struggles and often fails to control his capacity for violence. He goes to visit a friend in Montana, Doc Voss, who similarly battles his urges to settle things with guns and fists. After Doc nearly kills a biker in a bar fight, three bikers rape his daughter in an apparent act of revenge. But there are so many awful and violent people populating the town, all with mixed up motives and impulses, that the answers to the book's riddles are far from apparent. Billy Bob frequently talks to the the ghost of his friend LQ Navarro, whom he shot accidentally during a gun battle with Mexican drug dealers, adding a melancholy personification of his inner battles. Burke brings a strong literary touch to the tough guy genre. His books are packed with imagery and his characters are all unique (don't buy into the Robicheaux and Holland are the same character foolishness). This book is fabulous. You may find yourself compelled to read it in a single sitting.

Robicheaux/Holland are now the same person. The stock characters are all the same. The sheriff is a decent and kind man wishing all the various criminals would go back home and leave him alone while also being annoyed by the psychopathic level of violence perpetrated by the "good guys". There is a stock Mafia character that served in Nam and is only sort-of evil. There is the one super-villain that is nearly unstoppable. The "rich and famous" of course have various types of evil lurking in the background.
All the characters seem utterly unable to speak to each other normally or carry on a decent conversation. For example, when the local sheriff warns Holland that a bad guy is after him, Holland just gets annoyed with the Sheriff. Holland also can't see any reason why his son shouldn't camp in the yard while Holland and Company are in the middle of being beset by murderous psycho cases. The book is good if you have never read Burke, but it is the SAME good as his last few other books.

I thoroughly enjoyed yet another of Burke's novels! His style of prose and descriptive detail rival any current author. His ability to place the reader in the "here and now" of the characters is phenominal, even to the point of feeling and smelling the environment is beyond description. How can anyone deny the humanity of Billy Bob Holland and the expert way he manages to screw up his life and those of all others in whom he comes into contact, yet also manage to come out in the end as a model Western/Southern gentleman at the same time. I recommend it - and all of Burke's writings v- to any and all lovers of American fiction.

Billy Bob Holland lives with the ghost of his best friend, L.Q. Navarro, the man he accidentally killed when they chased after drug smugglers in Mexico. Billy Bob actually sees and talks with Navarro, but cannot form any relationships with living people because of his all-consuming guilt.

When his friend Doc Voss invites Billy Bob to visit him in Bitterroot Valley, Montana, he closes his law practice and goes. Upon arriving, he finds Doc at war with a local militia, bikers, and a mining company destroying the ecology. When Doc's daughter is raped, her assailants turn up dead shortly afterward. The police arrest Doc, who is defended by Billy Bob. However, the lawyer has his own problems caused by a sociopath blaming Billy Bob for the death of his sister.

BITTERROOT is one novel in which the thrills never stop coming and every scene is loaded with action. The talented James Lee Burke gets readers interested even in his most vile character as well as the anti-hero Billy Bob, a believer of justice and not necessarily the law. Billy Bob is the focus of the tale, a flawed individual taking responsibility for something he will regret until he dies.

Harriet Klausner

James Lee Burke brings an amazing cast of characters together in a story about good and evil. Bitterroot takes place in the beautiful lands of Montana. Doc Voss, a friend of Billy Bob Holland's asks for some assistance in his dealings with a mining company. What happens is a lot more involved than a little political action. What starts out as one concern quickly escalates into a situation that teeters on the brink of death and disaster In this story, the "bad guys" are truly evil and their interests become very personal when they target the family and friends of both Doc Voss and Billy Bob Holland. James Lee Burke brings his realistic and thoughtful style of dialogue as well as his spellbinding descriptions of the land into this gripping novel, creating a wondrous landscape as a backdrop to a terrifying tale.

Whether it's Billy Bob Holland or Dave Robicheaux, it really doesn't matter, James Lee Burke always seems to manage to make the story compelling.
This time it's Billy Bob, the ex-Texas Ranger turned lawyer. The setting, however, is a little different. Billy Bob travels north to the Bitterroot Valley, Montana and becomes embroiled in the problems of an old friend there.
As if the problems he's stumbled onto weren't enough, a psychopath who is convinced that Billy Bob is responsible for his sister's death has also followed him.
Billy Bob Holland is a tortured soul who is having trouble dealing with his past while, at the same time, trying to ensure his own safety now. Like the other James Lee Burke books, there is no shortage of action and intrigue mixed with a very interesting, while troubled, main character.

James Lee Burke is one of the finest fiction writers I've encountered recently. All of his novels I've read to date flow like a turbulent river. The characters are rich, the plots believable and cohesive. From first page to last, Burke weaves wonderful stories.

And "Bitterroot" is no exception. Billy Bob Holland, former Texas Ranger, and current lawyer is visiting Doc Voss, a friend in Montana. Doc has an interesting past, with not a little violence in it. Things are happening in the Bitterroot Valley - and the corpses are piling up.

Burke skillfully spins his story and you don't know who the really bad folks are until the end, just as it should be.

Jerry

James Lee Burke ... I'd read him anywhere, any time, any place, any whatever. The man can write with a force which is breath-taking. His books delve into the character of men in stressful circumstances...men working within a code of honor that is a throwback to other times. His characters live and speak with the pain of ghosts...convincingly. These men carry their pasts alongside their futures within the despair of realism. They face life's travails with a stoicism almost puritanical yet still find the joy in living. Once you've read "In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead," you will be forever addicted to Mr. Burke and can only anticipate the next gem, and this is it.

...any shortcoming in the dialogue portion of a Burke novel is made up in the poetry of his prose...Billy Bob Holland, somewhat similar to Dave Robicheaux in the "other" series, drives to Montana to visit his friend, "Doc" (from his medic days) Voss, now up to his armpits in bikers, pacifism, deadly kick boxing, the EPA and the American Nazi Party. Well, to start, that's confusing. The embryo for Billy's "I'd take a bullet for my friend" friendship is extremely vague, exacerbated by the trouble that we all go through, readers included, for the next several hundred pages.
But then Doc's teenage daughter is raped and things get dicey. Doc is charged with the torture-murder of the lead biker-suspect and Billy Bob sets out to defend him.
I'm troubled by using the rape of a child to further a plot. Certainly the violation of a human in such an unspeakable fashion is an oft relied upon explanation for revenge, guilt, remorse, retribution and passion. I just don't see the need to use children as victims.
I see the real problem in that Billy Bob is like a James Crumley character. As the reader, I spend a lot of time in the company of a man I'm not sure I like. He's promiscuous in his bed partners. He doesn't seem to have been a good father, and continues to remind us of that at every juncture. He's infuriated by the Sheriff in the town, who's kind of a soothsayer or narrator, but never tells us why. He tries to murder one of the protagonists and doesn't understand why this should trouble his friends...
Ultimately, the plane never gets off the runway. Lots of turbine noise, lots of baggage handlers, good flight attendants, but we never get anywhere.
Dave Robicheaux is a fantastic character, loyal husband, confused yet sacrificing and vulnerable parent, relentless in his code. Billy Bob is kind of tedious. Tedious for 500 pages is, well, tedious.

In BITTERROOT Burke takes us far away from Louisiana, the land of his birth, to the high country of Montana & continues the development of his new character of Billy Bob Holland.
One thing Burke does well with his characters, is that they all have a past. I don't like characters cut from whole cloth, because when I read I want to lay my eyes upon the patched quilt that makes up a character's life, that way I truly feel like I know them.
The social content deals with some very real probelms that are ongoing in today's society, & raises questions about just where one should place one's feet when straddling the fence. It also makes it very clear that fence straddling can be a dangerous occupation.

James Lee Burke is easily one of the best fiction writers to ever put ink on paper. Another crime drama with ex-Texas Ranger Billy Bob Holland right in the middle of it, this time up in Montana. Bikers, the Mob, FBI, starlets, white supremists, ex-cons, native americans, etc. This is a great, great yarn with exceptionally fleshed out characters. JLB still just amazes me whenever I read one of his books. You're drawn in and feel like you're part of the landscape. What prose. I'm going to go start another one right now. Great escapism. You'll enjoy it.

Having recently become a James Lee Burke fan and having read several of the Dave Robicheaux novels, I wanted to read "Bitterroot" because I happen to live in the center of the Bitterroot Valley and thought a Burke novel centered in my own "back yard" would be a fun read. However, I have to admit that my expectatations were not met, because easily 90% of the book takes place in locations outside the Bitterroot Valley. Missoula, Seeley Lake, Potomic, Jocko Valley, etc. are not within the Bitterroot, and most of the locations are a good half days drive. As far as the story goes, Burke has his usual bucket full of ner-do-wells and hero's with psychological problems themselves and everyone gets whats coming to them in the end, as it should be! A note of explanation to the reader is that they should remember that this is a fictional story. The human scum Burke writes about, outlaw bikers, white supremests, mafia bosses, and militia compounds are NOT found in the Bitterroot ! I wouldn't want to hear of anyone cancelling a planned vacation here out of fear of running into any of the lower life forms described in the book. All in all, I did like the story, but have to admit that the Robicheaux novels are Burkes best ! Keep them coming and send Billy Bob Holland back to Texas !

The seediness and depravity of the New Orleans wards so beautifully depicted in the Robicheaux novels does not transplant to rural Montana well, nor without laying bare the formula that underlies most of Burke's books. A host of psychopaths, degenerates and Mafiosos mix with a stage full of psychologically damaged innocents and not so innocents including the trademark flawed ex-lawman and his violence prone pal. Burke's gift for flowery agreeable prose which in past outings has raised this genre fiction to the threshold of literature here fails to camouflage the obvious retrofit that is Dave Robicheaux of New Iberia reborn as Billy Bob Holland in Montana. Two thirds into the story and the work seems to have degenerated into an aimless daisy-chain of one violent confrontation linking to the next act of heartless cruelty, all involving characters who are difficult to care about.

James Lee Burke moves Billy Bob Holland to Montana, but the badies keep poping up in BITTERROOT.
Classic Burke theme of good vs. evil, where eventually good wins after a rough ride down a cordwood road. Do they have those in Montana? Have no idea, but Billy Bob is a myth hero in boots and a 10-gallon hat.
Nash Black, author of SANDPRINTS OF DEATH

This book contains the author's typically beautiful if repetitive descriptions of landscape,weather and people. However the majority of the characters are unpleasant and detract from the prose.
They all speak to one another in the same contrived, oblique and aggressive fashion,nearly every conversation in the book consists of thinly veild accusations.
I find it incredulous that virtually everyone in a story would have the same voice(you could swap most conversations in the book between characters without noticing any difference).Surely one of the hallmarks of good writing is to give each character a distinctive voice? But here Billy Bob, Doc, Cleo,Xavier and the FBI agents,among others, all speak with the same patterns of speech.

Furthermore the character of Doc(supposedly the pivot for the story) is poorly drawn(does he actually do any work?Why do people follow his lead on issues when he seems a taciturn isolated loner with little charisma even from the opening scenes before the attack on his daughter?).Again from the opening scenes all he and Billy Bob seem to do is irritate one another.There is no evidence of a great friendship on show.

Indeed the complete absence of humour in this book is one of it's many weaknesses. Then again who would want to be friends with Billy Bob? He has nothing to recommend him as a character.
A cliched plot featuring far too many characters who are simply shadows of one another and painfully unlikely coincidences doen't help much either.Are there any normal people in Montana?

I think the book needed judicious editing, a better plot and more varied dialogue and tone. Nice descriptions alone are not enough.Each time I put it down I was ready to argue with someone and only finished it out of habit.
Given that Mr Burke has in some fashion been writing the same story for several years(psycho on the loose,amoral rich folks,rage filled sullen, humourless and frankly unhappy protagonist(Dave or Billy Bob) in beautifully described surroundings..etc) one would think he should be better at it by now.

James Lee Burke is one of my favorite authors. His work is good and easy read. However, this book was not easy for me to relate to as I am not from the south, nor do I have experience with some of the lingua that was used. This did not detract me from the story which was excellent!

As a novelist myself (The Legacy, Savage Press Oct. 2000), I began reading James Burke's latest tome with an eye towards learning something about the Great American West and the interplay between the land and Burke's fictional charactors. While the desciptions of Montana soared and provided a stunning background to "Bitterroot", the lack of any meaningful plot and the use of cardboard people to populate the landscape was disappointing. I had never read any of Burke's stuff. I was anticipating a northern version of Tony Hillerman. I was sorely disappointed.

More of the same: stilted dialogue and officers of the court (Billy Bob and Dave being indistinguishable in my eyes,although to be fair, Billy Bob isn't nearly as self-itying as Dave. I'm over James Lee Burke, after all these years...sigh...I know he'll be crushed.