I picked this up because I had watched In the Electric Mist and wanted to read it but found this one instead. Another ghost haunting our main character, and while I liked most of the characters, I fear the story fell apart in the third third. The connection to the Oklahoma City bombing was not resolved, hints of other issues only stayed that, and the motivations for anybody doing anything got really confused for me, but the first thirds I enjoyed. ( )

I know I listened to this book but I don't remember much about it except that the descriptions of the Bitterroot Valley made me want to visit. So we did and we had a great time. We've been back several times since. ( )

This one goes in the category of DNF (Did not finish). I do this when the audio sounds like Charlie Brown's teacher...."bwaa...bwaaa. bwaaaa". Billy Bob Holland, our narrator is a lawyer from Texas in Montana. He doesn't do any lawyering, just goes around getting in trouble with the local Sheriff. The book just did not click in my mind. And, what author, who lives in Montana, thought that the Clark Fork (of the Missouri) flows into the Columbia, on the other side of those large mountains on the West side of the state? Billy Bob should just stay in Texas, where he belongs. It was a strain to read. If this was a mystery I completely missed it. There was no real continuity. And, I have no idea what happened in the ending, because I never got that far. ( )

It is a bit difficult to explain my "issue" with this series... but it has to do with how the main character, Billy Bob, is mainly just the "narrator" of the story. Most of the story is told from his point of view (with a couple slips into other POVs), but he is not really involved with committing any of the actions in the novel. He is there, and he talks about who did what and what's going on, but he doesn't play any pivotal role in any of it... This is fine, because the story is strong and interesting enough that we don't really need him to do much, but it does make me wonder why the author bothers to have a central recurring character who is rather incidental to the solving of the crime(s).

Billy Bob isn't a cop or a detective, or even a lawyer in these books (well, he IS a lawyer, but he doesn't do any lawyering)... he is just the backdrop around which a lot of bad guys do a lot of bad things. At the end justice is served, but not by Billy Bob... the bad guys seem to end up doing it to themselves.

Anyway, I really like the writing style and the characters "evilness" and the fact that justice gets served, so will be reading the next in the series. ( )

Bitterroot by James Lee Burke-Set in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana, features Billy Bob Holland, former Texas Ranger and now a Texas based lawyer, who has come to Big Sky Country for some fishing and ends up helping out a old friend in trouble. Holland's in big trouble, in the form of Wyatt Dixon, a recent prison parolee swore to kill him as revenge of both his imprisonment and his sister's death. ( )