Feast Day of Fools

Starred review from August 1, 2011
In Edgar-winner Burke's outstanding third novel featuring smalltown Texas sheriff Hackberry Holland (after Rain Gods), Hackberry joins a motley crew of killers, idealists, psychos, mobsters, and Feds in the search for Noie Barnum, a disgruntled former intelligence asset who escaped the human smugglers that were trying to sell him to al-Qaeda. Barnum finds an unexpected protector in Preacher Jack Collins, a quixotic mass murderer, whom Hackberry calls "he most dangerous man I've ever met." The richness of Burke's characters, always one of his strengths, reaches new heights, as shown particularly in Krill, a mentally scarred veteran of Central American violence driven by grief over his slaughtered children, and Cody Daniels, would-be minister and xenophobe, who undergoes a spiritual sea change during his own via crucis. The intricately plotted narrative takes numerous unexpected turns, and Burke handles his trademark themes of social justice and corruption with his usual subtlety.

February 1, 2012

In this third book in the Hack Holland series (Lay Down My Sword and Shield; Rain Gods), the ongoing war between good and evil is ratcheted up as Hack faces threats from many sides. He will be revisited by some of the most evil men he has known, and around every turn there will be yet more danger in his small Texas border town. Will Patton gives his usual perfect performance, and the reader will soon begin to realize that this book is Burke at his best. He has won the Edgar Award twice, and three of his books have been made into movies. ["This rich novel will satisfy Burke's fans and should draw new ones who have not yet had the privilege of reading his works," read the review of the New York Times best-selling S. & S. hc, LJ 8/11.--Ed.]--Theresa Connors, Arkansas Tech Univ. Lib., Russellville

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