I have read a few of Burke's Dave Robicheaux crime novels and really enjoyed them. This one is a departure from those novels being a complex story about the Holland family. It starts out with 16-year old Weldon Holland having a chance encounter with Bonnie and Clyde after one of their notorious robberies. Weldon ends up putting a bullet through the car they were driving without hitting anyone but this encounter stays with Weldon for life. Ten years later, Lieutenant Holland is at the Battle of the Bulge and barely makes it out alive with his sergeant, Herschel Pine. The two happen upon a deserted concentration camp and rescue a beautiful woman, Rosita, who was hiding there. Rosita, a Jew who is also from a Communist family, ends up becoming Weldon's wife and the future for them seems bright when Herschel is able to convert a Nazi welding machine into one used for laying oil pipeline in Texas and Louisiana. But Weldon gets on the bad side of some evil anti-communist bigots who want his business and want to hide what had happened to Weldon's father years earlier. This puts Weldon, Herschel, Rosita, and Herschel's wife, Linda Gail, all in harm's way.
This was a very entertaining and engrossing story that meanders across post-war America from the oil fields of Texas and Louisiana to Hollywood where Linda Gail is posed to be a star. I have enjoyed Burke's writing and this one goes beyond any of his other novels I have read. High recommendation!
This was a very entertaining and engrossing story that meanders across post-war America from the oil fields of Texas and Louisiana to Hollywood where Linda Gail is posed to be a star. I have enjoyed Burke's writing and this one goes beyond any of his other novels I have read. High recommendation!
