Cimarron Rose (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "My great-grandfather was Sam Morgan Holland, a drover who trailed cows up the Chisholm from San Antonio to Kansas..." (more)
Key Phrases: skeet club, mud caves, stucco church, Mary Beth, Billy Bob, Felix Ringo (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Billy Bob Holland, the protagonist of Cimarron Rose, is an attorney in the dusty Texas town of Deaf Smith. An ex-Texas Ranger (cop, not ball-player) who mistakenly killed his partner during a drug bust, Holland is jolted from his brooding when his estranged illegitimate son is accused of the rape and murder of a party girl. He takes the case, of course, and things get complicated mighty quick. On a hunch only a father could believe, Holland is sure his son is being railroaded. Doggedly pursuing the truth, he runs afoul of sadistic cops, a powerful family, and the euphoniously-named Garland T. Moon, a feral thug with something to hide. Luckily, the folks on his team are just as tough. Burke's book isn't gritty realism--Holland's dead partner visits him often--but the characters ring true in a weird way. They are quirky and appealing, and even the criminals make good company while the whodunit unfolds. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Deaf Smith, Texas, is a small town like any other. It also hides many secrets. When Billy Bob Holland finds himself defending Lucas Smothers against a charge of murder, he finds himself exposing many of these secrets in an effort to save Lucas, the son he has never acknowledged. As Holland examines the murder, he stumbles upon a DEA investigation of the town and its law enforcement officials. He also finds himself having to deal with the secrets in his own past, including the death of his partner, the loss of his father and his father's role in the life of a serial killer now in Deaf Smith, and the realization that he can deal with the anger that is within him and not let it beat him. Author Burke (Dixie City Jam, Audio Reviews, LJ 2/15/94) is a beautiful writer. His descriptions are glorious. One can almost see the ghost of Billy Bob's partner, feel the Texas thunderstorms, and see the town of Deaf Smith. However, this beautiful prose at times gets in the way of the story. Will Patton is a good reader and helps to bring the character of Billy Bob to life. Recommended for collections where Burke is popular and for large mystery collections.?Danna Bell-Russel, Natl. Equal Justice Lib., American Univ., Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: B E Trice Pub; Limited edition (March 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0963192590
• ISBN-13: 978-0963192592
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,119,814 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Distinctively Burke, for better or worse, April 2, 2001

By	Douglas A. Greenberg (Berkeley, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Cimarron Rose (Billy Bob Boy Howdy) (Mass Market Paperback)

Having read several of James Lee Burke's novels now, I have come to see that his approach to weaving together a story is intriguingly unorthodox. His narrative is choppy and at times almost disjointed; short vignettes, encounters, and episodes are cobbled together, and change-of-voice digressions and flashbacks are not unusual. Readers accustomed to a smoother ride will find Burke's approach difficult in places.

At the same time, Burke can positively hypnotize readers through the beauty of the language he employs and his ability to capture a thought, a moment, a mood, or a concept in a few well-chosen words or phrases. This combination of organizational looseness and powerful, evocative writing makes reading Burke a truly distinctive literary experience.

In *Cimarron Rose*, Burke has taken a break from his Dave Robacheaux series and has introduced a new protagonist, Billy Bob Holland in a new setting, Deaf Smith County, Texas. Still, the overall tone and style of the story will be familiar to readers of previous Burke novels. Holland is another fallen lawman-type haunted by his past, and his similarity to Robacheaux in terms of his patterns of action and thinking are hardly surprising. The story itself is populated by desperate criminal types, fallen women, drunkards, corrupt "leading citizens," a demented maniac, and in fact, a entire cast of typical denizens of Burke's stories.

With its loosely woven whodunit plot line and its accompanying quota of broken noses and gunshot wounds, the story is a kind of classic combination of police mystery and violent pulp fiction novella. Added to this are some interesting added elements, including recurring reference to Billy Bob's great-grandaddy's journal and the regular appearance of the ghost of Billy Bob's ex-best friend and partner. Combined with a rather weird ... ending, the whole mish-mash makes for interesting reading but doesn't constitute a satisfactorily well-woven novel overall.

Despite its flaws, *Cimarron Rose* is worthwhile not only because of Burke's talents as a wordsmith, but also because of his astute eye for social and class interactions and conflict in his small-town southern setting. His descriptions of the myriad ways in which the affluent "East enders" dominate the small Texas community in which events unfold in this book shows Burke's keen understanding of the sociological and economic as well as psychological aspects of his human subject matter. Clearly, his own sympathies are with the lower classes, the downtrodden, the underprivileged, and the way he skewers the powerful and hypocritical in this book is impressive, indeed.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars But Bitterroot is better!, January 24, 2002

By	TundraVision (o/~ from the Land of Sky Blue Waters o/~) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Cimarron Rose (Billy Bob Boy Howdy) (Mass Market Paperback)

I liked part two (Bitterroot) of James Lee Burke’s Billy Bob Holland saga so well that I gave this first part a listen on unabridged audio. Boy howdy, Billy Bob gets better with age!

Cimarron Rose is our introduction Billy Bob Holland, an attorney/former Texas Ranger (the Law Enforcement kind – not G.W.’s former baseball team) and his friends and relatives, including his dead ranger partner, L.Q. Navarro, for whose death Billy Bob, a “river-baptized” Baptist turned Roman Catholic, feels all the guilt that the latter can impose.

The plot exposes small-town caste sociology to the light - without proselytizing - like Stephen King did in the horror venue with “Carrie.” But what’s up with Great-grandpa’s journal? This reader doesn’t see the point - except to exploit the extreme predjudices of the period against Native Americans. The author’s forays (via excerpts from an old journal) into Billy Bob’s outlaw/preacher great-grandfather’s lust for the “savage” Cimarron Rose, and concomitant self-hatred, seem superfluous and gratuitous.

Burke’s writing is superb. At one point I just had to stop and write down a quote. Billy Bob (the tale is written in the first-person) is telling us about his Daddy, who had gone nearly blind as a welder. Then, “Clarity of sight” came only when he was welding “and saw again the flame that was as pure to him as the cathedrals bells were to the deaf bell-ringer Quasimodo.”

This tour of Burke’s Deaf Smith County, Texas is well worth the trip. Stay on board for Bitterroot, Montana!

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Same story different setting, April 16, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Cimarron Rose (Billy Bob Boy Howdy) (Mass Market Paperback)

If you have never read a Burke novel then you may like this. If you are familiar with the Robicheaux novels, then pass this one up. I like James Lee Burke's novels, but this book is just the same story and same characters with different names and in Texas instead of New Iberia, LA. Billy Bob is just Dave Robicheaux except as a small town lawyer rather than a small town cop. He has a woman partner, has semi-adopted a young ethnic child, talks to a ghost, defends the down-trodden and his father was killed in an oil company accident just like Robicheaux's father. He deals with sketchy characters from his past and has to deal with the "psychic scars" of his past as the NY Book Review put it. Sound familiar? If you have read the Robicheaux series then, of course it does. I found myself missing the antics of Clete Purcel. Same idea here: the rich and powerful screw with the down and out. Guess who wins in the end?