"In the Moon of Red Ponies" is one of James Lee Burke's novels that features Billy Bob Holland, a defense attorney in Missoula, instead of his better known protagonist, Dave Robicheaux. The Holland books are subtler, taking a little longer to develop and distributing more of the action to the cast of characters. Burke's mastery of scene continues with gorgeous descriptions of Montana's natural riches. The captivating patterns of Burke's writing continue: the problem that can't be ignored by a man of conscience; an assortment of personalities in various degrees of disrepair; moments of startling, violent ferocity; small moments of hard-earned redemption; and the sanctuary of love-making.

Billy Bob Holland (yes Billy Bob) a former Texas Ranger, a Former DA, and now a current Defense attorney has just found out that Wyatt Dixon, a psycho who attempted to bury his wife alive, has been released from jail on a technicality. The local drunk has also been locked up again but this time is different because he was caught carrying a concealed weapon. Billy bob worries about Dixon as he goes to bail out Johnny American Horse (The local Drunk) from jail on the weapons charges.....

To be fair I didn't choose this book. It was kind of forced on me by an acquaintance. I had a feeling by reading the title that this wasn't likely to be something I would enjoy but figured I would give it a shot. I couldn't even finish this one. It is that bad. I was literally laughing out loud at this author's prose. Like all books if they start a little weak I will give them 100 pages +/- and if 100 pages in I still just don't care about what's going on in the story it is time to move on. The book read like a bad combination of, Cheesy modern western and cheesy film noir.

The Good: ??????

The Bad: This author's style of writing is completely annoying. I literally began to laugh as I read his attempts at setting scenes. Every single scene every time is set with, "The hills were blanked with sun" "The sun was bright on the hillside" "We walked into the brilliance of morning sunshine" and on and on and on in every scene. These descriptions were paired with gems like "The air smelled of distant rain" "the air smelled of wet grass and pine" and "The sky was forked with lightning" or a variation thereof. Also every scene has "through the window I could see mountains in the back ground". Now I'm not talking every chapter or every other chapter. I am talking about every scene, which is every page to every third page. Also almost every scene introduces a new member of wild life: "White tail deer scampered across the path" "white tail deer walked up into the shadowed wood" "I was temporarily distracted buy a black bear ambling across the path" "Moose and elk crossed the stream in the distance". This stuff was so heavy handed in the book it became laughable and this was all in the first 120 pages.

The characters are also not likeable. The hero is a defense attorney, his overbearing PI wife, the ex psycho reformed Christian killer, the drunken hero Indian and of course the over the top cop. I am reading this looking for a character to enjoy reading or at least to root against and what I found after 100 pages was that I just didn't care about any of them. Not only did I not care but I actually disliked them. Burke should have spent more time on his characters than on wild life and sun blanketed hillsides.

The characters names are also pretty bad. I don't usually complain about this but had to here. Gems like: Billy Bob, Temple (Billy Bob's wife) Johnny American Horse and Lester Antelope.

The story lacks a cohesive plot. Stories that don't follow conventional story lines are fine when all of the other components are in place however I don't think that is what is going on in "Red Ponies". I think the plot is just so meandering and slow to develop that it didn't even begin to make itself known in the portion I read.

Overall: I could go on an on about how poor this book is but will just say to pass on this one.

The reader is hard to get used to, the story good, lot of twists and turns, keeps you interested.

I've read just about everything Burke has written and this is one of the worst. The various parts just don't fit together and I found myself drumming my fingers and wishing it would just end. I suppose the good news is that it did. More and more the author has his main characters wallowing in self analysis and contemplating their navels at great length. If you like that you like it but there's too much of it for me. In addition the plot is kind of pasted together and imparts no belief that it could happen as written or that it makes sense. And the actions of the protagonist become increasingly tiresome. Enough.

Having become a James Lee Burke junkie over the last year, I couldn't wait to read "Moon". What a disappointment. Billy Bob and Temple in Montana just can't compare to Dave and Bootsie in Louisiana! The action wanes when it needs to wax - and Cletus is no where around to spice it up. If you like the Bayou stories, I'm afraid the Bitteroot Mountains won't elicit quite the same reading anticipation.