Texas,
1952. 17-year-old Aaron Holland Broussard could just go to school and work at
the local filling station. But his big mouth gets him in trouble over and over
again. Problem is that he is a lot cleverer than the rest of the boys and this
makes things even more complicated. When he spots Valerie Epstein in a fight
with her boyfriend Grady Harrelson, he tries to help her thus triggering a
series of events and making a lot of enemies. Grady is not a nobody just as his
father whose business is all but legal. What starts as a boys’ fight end in a
series of fatal murders involving not only the local gangsters but also Italian
mafia.
James Lee
Burke has the capacity of integrating a lot of themes into a fast-paced mystery
novel. On the surface, we have the coming-of-age novel where boys make
mistakes, bond with the wrong bunch and experience their first love. But
beneath, we have all those war experiences of the parent generation which left
the scars not only on the outside but also inside and marked them forever – and
the threat of the boys of being sent to Korea from which many did not return.
It is an accusation of what those useless wars do to people and what they bring
back home than can never be made undone. Apart from this, the enormous violence
and the easy availability of weapons of all kinds are also clearly shown. That
more weapons do not lead to more security is obvious here and having kids grow
up in this environment surely is not the best idea. What I found especially
interesting was the side plot about the paedophile teacher – this is a topic
hardly ever touched in novels, yet it should be highlighted what happened and
how society dealt (and deals?) with victims and perpetrators.
All in all,
I just rushed through the novel. The short chapters just flew by, the whole
plot moves at a very fast pace and keeps you reading on. The dialogues are
lively and authentic; the action is exactly what you would expect in such a
novel. There is no question at all about James Lee Burke being the Grand Master
of mystery writing.
