I have long been a fan of James Lee Burke, but haven't read anything in a while. This book is technically part of his "Holland Family" series. Burke conveniently offers a family tree so you can figure out where the protagonist of this book, 85-year-old Aaron Holland Broussard, fits into the scheme of things. Aaron is a successful author who has recently lost his daughter, Fannie Mae, and lives alone on his ranch in Montana. He is so bereft that he beckons his daughter back from the other side--and that's just the beginning of this ghost story. While his daughter is trying to protect him from both the living and dead, there are malevolent spirits that are committing horrendous crimes in the present day. Broussard teams up with a much younger Native American woman, Ruby Spotted Horse, who is also a state trooper and the keeper of a gate that is supposed to contain the evil spirits (the Old People). Much of the story revolves around the atrocities committed by certain cavalry commanders against Native Americans on the very land where Broussard's ranch now stands. But there is also corruption aplenty among the living. Kirkus concludes that the book is "Less mystery than history, less history than prophecy, and all the stronger for it." Publishers Weekly also recommends the book, saying "this is one of those extraordinary crime novels that feels more like real life, with incidents and people that aren’t obviously connected piling up in the protagonist’s life, rather than a neat set of clues pointing to a culprit. Once again, Burke uses genre fiction to plumb weighty issues, both social and emotional." Specifically, Booklist notes that "Burke rolls together the driving themes that have dominated his work--the inescapable presence of evil, the restorative power of love, the desecration of the planet, humanity's long slouch toward Armageddon--into an intensely, heartrendingly personal exploration of grief."
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