When Louisiana Sheriff's Detective Dave Robicheaux and his friend Private Investigator Clete Pursell decide to spend a summer fly fishing in Montana they naturally find some plenty of crimes that need to be solved. The local Sheriff even welcomes their help for awhile but the more they stir up the less welcoming the Sheriff becomes. Among the people they encounter are a family of wealthy Texas oil millionaires who have bought up a big chunk of Montana ranch land and build large estates and a bunch of country musicians and ex or escaped cons. Also a dishonorably discharged soldier turned prison guard who is trying to track down one of those escaped convicts. Will Clete and Dave solve all this without being killed themselves? I like the setting in Montana around Missoula and Flathead Lake just as much as I like Burke's Louisiana settings. ( )

If you haven't read anything by James Lee Burke I am both envious and smug at the same time. My favourite writer in any genre by a mile. ( )

Moved right away from this sort of book, after doing too many of them, at some point. Wondered early on if I should have trusted that distance, but glad I didn't. Burke manages to make a happy ending so bleak that it remains moving. And I totally forgive how long it took him to get to the chase.

You either like Burke, in which case this will be to your taste, or you don't. To me he's like Connelly with class. Somebody will be offended by that. Sorry. ( )

Abridged audio book significantly detracts from the book as written.
Not among my favorite burke novels but the book as read is better than this abridged version.
Narration is good as usual. ( )

enjoyable and atmospheric as always, here the forests and backwaters rather than New Orleans and Louisiana. I found the lot a bit muddled though ( )