“America’s best novelist” ( The Denver Post ) brings back one of his most fascinating characters—Texas sheriff Hackberry Holland, cousin to lawman Billy Bob Holland—in this heart-pounding bestseller. In a heat-cracked border town, the bodies of nine illegal aliens—women and girls, killed execution-style—are unearthed in a shallow grave. Haunted by a past he can’t shake and his own private demons, Hack attempts to untangle the grisly case, which may lead to more bloodshed. Damaged young Iraq vet Pete Flores, who saw too much before fleeing the crime scene, and his girlfriend, Vikki Gaddis, are running for their lives. Sorting through the lowlifes who are hunting down Pete, and with Preacher Jack Collins, a Godfearing serial killer for hire, in the mix, Hack is caught up in a terrifying race for survival—for Pete, Vikki, and himself. "Burke is a deliberate storyteller; he doesn't skimp on the action, but his exploration of human foibles is deep, and his characters are true... Rain Gods is about catching the bad guys, but it's also a moving, melancholy examination of how we do wrong, then try our best to atone." -- Connie Ogle, Miami Herald "If James Lee Burke has the deepest regional voice in the genre -- and I do believe that's so -- it's because he understands those feelings that keep people connected to the places where they have, or once had, roots...Preacher is one of Burke's most inspired villains..." -- Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review "...readers will find some of the best and most memorable prose of Burke's career...It is the narrative...that is the biggest strength of this character-driven novel. Burke is at heart a poet capable of describing the light and the dark in equal measures of the beautiful and horrific, one who can both gradually illuminate the darkness and cast dark shadows across the sun, often within the space of a single short paragraph. Rain Gods is a work of deep, violent and, yes, beautiful magic, a wondrous manifestation of one of our best American authors becoming even better, as improbable and impossible as that may seem." -- Joe Hartlaub, Bookreporter.com "...there's something so winning about Hackberry Holland, something so perfect for the times in which we're reading...anger and bitterness fuel a fair amount of James Lee Burke's fiction, showing how the best and the worst of us are driven by demons -- the memories of bad family history; of wars past and present; the pull of the bottle; the furious engine that drives some to desire money or power, by whatever means; the slow, seeping poison of grief and regret. In Rain Gods , Burke once again renders the cautionary tale he has perfected over 28 books." -- Susan Larson, New Orleans Times Picayune James Lee Burke is a New York Times bestselling author, two-time winner of the Edgar Award, and the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts in Fiction. He has authored forty novels and two short story collections. He lives in Missoula, Montana. Will Patton’s film credits include Halloween , Boarding School , Megan Leavey , American Honey , Meek’s Cutoff , A Mighty Heart, Remember the Titans , The Mothman Prophecies , Armageddon , and No Way Out. He starred in Swamp Thing on the DC Universe streaming platform and was seen in five seasons of the TNT series Falling Skies. He has won Obie Awards for his performances in Fool for Love and What Did He See? He is also known for his audiobook recordings of the work of Stephen King, James Lee Burke, Denis Johnson, and William Faulkner. James Lee Burke and narrator Will Patton are a brilliant duo. Burke writes a tale of evil and redemption, and Patton vividly embodies the succession of bad guys and innocents caught in the sights of greed and violence. The setting is poverty-laced West Texas, where a mass murder of Asian women is discovered by an aging sheriff who hopes to leave his own past behind. The searing detail of evil is offset by elegant, elegiac descriptions of the natural landscape. Patton knows exactly how to get maximum effect from both facets. Listeners may cringe from the violence but are soon calmed and delighted by descriptions of the hills and sunsets. The natural landscape soothes the story's boiling venom and hopelessness. Patton plays each emotion, creating a listening powerhouse. R.F.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine