In the Moon of Red Ponies: A Novel (Hardcover)

by James Lee Burke (Author) "MY LAW OFFICE was located on the old courthouse square of Missoula, Montana, not far from the two or three blocks of low-end bars and..." (more)
Key Phrases: howdy doodie, tote sack, man with silver hair, Wyatt Dixon, Johnny American Horse, Billy Bob (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
In this top-notch fourth novel in Burke's series featuring ex–Texas Ranger attorney Billy Bob Holland, Billy Bob has moved his family and practice to the pastoral city of Missoula, Mont., the setting of his last adventure (Bitterroot, 2001), only to discover that the psychopathic ex-biker/rodeo clown, Wyatt Dixon (who buried Billy Bob's private investigator wife, Temple, alive), is out of prison on a technicality and claiming to be a born-again Christian. Billy Bob befriends alcoholic Desert Storm hero Johnny American Horse, a sometime breeder of horses and eco-activist who—when not in the drunk tank—is carrying on a passionate affair with Amber Finley, the daughter of Romulus Finley, a vindictive and bigoted powerful U.S. senator. When Johnny is suspected of murdering the hit man who invaded his home as well as masterminding the burglary of Global Research (a high-tech agricultural lab), making off with its computer files, the action picks up quickly. Noted for quirky characters and intricate plots, Burke introduces demon-driven sheriff's deputy Darrel McComb—an ex–war hero and former mercenary pilot who flew cocaine for the contras—who has an erotic fixation on Amber. Factor in private security agency chief Greta Lundstrum, FBI agent Seth Masterson and Karsten Mabus, CEO of the company that owns Global Research, and the mayhem builds to a gripping, spine-tingling finale.
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From Bookmarks Magazine
Burke sets his fourth Billy Bob Holland crime drama on the edge of the Bitterroot Mountains in Montana. This fast-paced mystery occasionally slows to a tumbleweed pace so the author can comment on the treatment of Native Americans, corporate misuses of the environment, and governmental intrusion into privacy. But when his intriguing characters demand equal attention, Burke crafts action sequences so realistic you can practically smell the gunpowder and sweat. Some critics cite gratuitous plotting and uneven characters. But with the reappearance of homicidal rodeo clown Wyatt Dixon (who buried the hero’s wife alive in the third installment, Bitteroot), most agree that Ponies is the best yet in the series.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 322 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (June 8, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743245431
• ISBN-13: 978-0743245432
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (47 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #562,946 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I go Robicheaux, August 28, 2004

By	Charles J. Marr (Cambridge Springs, Pa USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Billy Bob Holland is back, ghost partner and all, but now we also have Native American visions and presences. Maybe this worked better in In The Electric Mist With Confederate Dead because bayou swamps are more conducive to visions than the clear air of the mountains. For avid Burke readers, this may mark an important artistic move by the author. He may be attempting the sort of shift into psychological probing of the character as happened in the Robicheaux series as in Mist, Dave became more than just a two fisted, alcoholic ex-New Orleans cop, and Burke showed us his own and his character's history and attachment to the culture of Louisiana. I did not really like that work, but looking back I see how Burke was making a shift from merely popular to what is a Faulknerian view. Although I cannot recall which novel has the line to the effect "When I hear that song [Jolie Blonde] I could cry for the culture that is disappearing," it certainly places that series in important company.

This is by way of excuse for a much lower opinion of Moon of Red Ponies. Now, I have read Burke's earlier work. Rifle toting, mountain loggers and cowboys. Out of work and out of Jail, or in. So I see he might be trying to develop his ex-Ranger hero along the lines of Dave Robicheaux; he hasn't done it yet. No sympathetic Alafair , no Baptiste, no colleagues with some understanding, just Billy Bob and his hot tempered wife against the world.

If you are reading this review to decide on spending the full retail, I say go ahead if you are an experienced Burke reader and want to understand his entire corpus. If you are just starting to read Burke, however, go back and get a copy of Jolie Blon's Bounce, Cadillac Jukebox or even Last Car to Elysian Fields or maybe White Doves, hold off on this one until you are a fan.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A modern morality tale, June 12, 2004

By	Luan Gaines "luansos" (Dana Point, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

With his recent mystery novel, Burke is back! The last book I read by this author was The Last Car to Elysian Fields, a Dave Robicheaux novel, which I found a disappointment, to say the least. I was afraid the author had fallen victim to his publisher's pressure to produce more novels than his talent could bear, as has happened with so many in this genre of late. I am happy to say that this talented writer has produced the kind of work that made me a fan in the first place. It's not so much the wild assortment of eccentric characters or the plot that so deftly layers complicated social issues, but the surety with which the author writes.

A good novelist tells a story, one that can inform and educate the reader on the vagaries of human nature. In this Montana-based suspense/mystery, filled with eccentric personalities, government drones and truly wicked people, Burke tackles the nature of good and evil. More specifically, the way the two intermingle in support of a cause, blurring the lines of what is acceptable behavior in achieving a goal, the age-old conundrum of whether the end justifies the means. Add in a liberal dose of the Patriot Act in law enforcement and the ubiquitous government agencies are involved in areas formerly restricted to them.

Burke constructs a folksy tale of honorable men versus miscreants in a setting as close to the primitive origins of the West as is possible to find today. Like the clever populist nursery rhymes of old England, political tracts in the guise of children's stories, Burke cloaks his morality play in the costumes of cowboys, FBI agents and mercenaries. When Billy Bob Holland, attorney and ex-Texas Ranger, undertakes the defense of a local Indian, Johnny American Horse, the case appears simple. But Detective Darrell McComb pushes the confrontation up another level, although Holland still believes the deal can be negotiated legally.

Circumstances are beset with ambiguity in the form of Wyatt Dixon, a nightmare from Holland's past; there is serious bad blood between the two men. As far as Holland is concerned, forgiveness is not an option. Unfortunately, Wyatt has been "saved", claiming he is a changed man on the path of righteousness. Knowing Wyatt's sociopathic nature, Holland can't digest the new image. Besides, Holland is fighting his own demons, coming to the realization that Johnny American Horse is the perfect fall guy for whatever nefarious activity is really going on. Strange bedfellows being what they are, Holland experiences considerable discomfort when Wyatt hovers on the sidelines, offering his help. Meanwhile the bodies pile up.

Burke is back in the saddle with this book and knows where he is going, never giving away too much information, but leaving breadcrumbs along the trail. Identifying all the players in this book may require a score card, but it is Burke's talent that pulls the novel together in an obscure but believable trek into the dark heart of the American wilderness, where greed eats away like acid at the last frontier. Luan Gaines/2004.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An ambitious failure, February 6, 2005

By	PATRICK OHANNIGAN (North Carolina) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

James Lee Burke is a master of scenic description with a novelist's grasp of the good and bad impulses that motivate people. Having read some of his early fiction about New Orleans detective Dave Robicheaux, I expected In the Moon of Red Ponies to be a satisfying excursion through the world of what might be called "Western Noir," as though this book were the progeny of a mating between "Farewell, My Lovely" and "Lonesome Dove."

I was half-right. The book is "Western Noir," but perhaps its most obvious literary antecedent is John Steinbeck's "East of Eden." Yes, that comparison puts Burke in fast company. On the whole, however, I can't recommend "In the Moon of Red Ponies," and would have to call it an ambitious failure.

The most significant problem with the book is its protagonist, Billy Bob Holland. Burke makes Holland a Texas Ranger turned Montana lawyer. He's as stubborn as you'd expect. He's also unrelentingly morose, which means he suffers in comparison to the other characters in the book. Psychotic rodeo clown Wyatt Dixon, for example, is painted as an extreme villain who had nearly killed Billy Bob's wife in a previous book. But Dixon -- in spite of the chemical cocktail he drinks on court orders to maintain a semblance of moral and social equilibrium -- proves better and wiser company than Holland.

When two men break into Dixon's rural home while he's having breakfast, he surprises them with a cheerful "howdy doodle, boys" before savaging them with the iron skillet in his hand. Holland, by contrast, broods his way through all 336 pages. In mayhem or in calm, he's more stoic and less accessible than his nemesis or "Johnny American Horse," the American Indian activist whose dreams give the book its title.

Midway through the story, Burke's sermons about the evils of corporations and the perfidy of the federal government begin to wear thin. We get them coming and going: from Billy Bob, from Johnny, and from a lonely cop.

The political angle colors an industrial burglary for which American Indian activists are prime suspects, but it struck me as more heavy-handed than it should have been. To push the book even further from literature and into "beach read" territory, agony aunt Billy Bob Holland crosses paths with a Foghorn Leghorn-type of United States Senator and his hot young blue-eyed daughter (the rebel dating "beneath her station").

Rule of thumb: When a cheerfully deranged psychopath and an activist who never says much make a better impression than the protagonist of your novel, a rewrite may be in order.