I am an on-again-off-again James Lee Burke fan, so I put off cracking this one open. I’m sorry it took me so long! Burke has delivered a sort of wet hug of a story here that makes you feel increasingly uncomfortable as those arms tighten and tighten and tighten until you just have to break away, gasping and dripping wet.

Burke delivers his usual eloquent prose - skillful character development and taut descriptions enhance a twisted plot that climaxes in a weird and scary way. I’m still not sure if I would classify this as a mystery or horror novel - the librarians will have a hard time genrefying this one.

Recommended for those who like their stories deep and dark.

Remembering America ``great again"... the early 1960's... the country was wholesome and innocent, it was a time of Camelot -- peace and love filled the air. Father knew best, we made room for daddy, and while Hazel tidied the house Ozzie was searching for Tutti-Frutti ice cream for little Ricky and David.

This was the facade. This was not Mayberry.

In James Lee Burke's "Another Kind of Eden" Aaron Holland Broussard is an aspiring writer wandering across the great wide western states, hopping trains and working on farms, just trying to make an honest living. Beneath Eden's surface things are not so perfect, not always as they appear. Those in power use brute force to maintain control over the disadvantaged. Any mention of the word "union" is an incitement for violence. The respected beacons of the community, the people Aaron looks up to, harbor dark corrupt secrets. Even the dawn of the hippie flower child culture feels the contamination of narcotics.

A hidden undercurrent runs through Aaron, too. An overwhelming force compels him to stop the wrongs he sees behind the facade, all while he wrestles with demons and flashbacks from his Korean war trauma. In the aftermath of these blackouts he is left to wonder what violence he summoned to answer the evil.

There is a reference to Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown" in the prologue. That story, set in the time of Salem's witch trials, concludes with the world turning upside down for the main character. He travels a nightmarish journey culminating in the revelation that the people he counted on are aligned with the devil. Aaron has the same experience. His blackouts, time-tripping, and hallucinations meet with the supernatural in a showdown smashing his reality like a wrecking ball.

James Lee Burke's previous novel, "A Private Cathedral'', also introduced a supernatural vein into his work. His protagonist in that book (and in dozens of others), Dave Robicheaux, is also a moral but flawed man driven to violence when confronted with pure evil. In these works the villainy is manifesting itself stronger than ever and must be dealt with accordingly.
 
With 5 stars I highly recommend this book as I would all James Lee Burke's work. Thank you to NetGalley, Simon & Schuster, and James Lee Burke for the advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.  Posting today on NetGalley and GoodReads.

"Another Kind of Eden" publishes on August 17, 2021 and I will be posting this review on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, BookBub, and Twitter on that day.  #AnotherKindOfEden #NetGalley

Another beautifully written book from Mr. Burke. However, after reading all his books, they are becoming a tad predictable.

I am very conflicted about this book. The writing is stellar -- beautiful, captivating, engrossing, but the final third of the book turns a suspenseful mystery into something that may (0r may) not be right out of a Stephen King book. Aaron is an intriguing character. His past seems to be a mystery to everyone, even himself. He admits to having blackouts, not alcohol or drug induced, but the result of some sort of psychological issue -- schizophrenia? PTSD? Burke deftly puts us in the middle of the 1960s and does a great job of recreating life on a ranch in rural Colorado at the beginning of the Viet Nam war and the beatnik/hippie movement. The mystery around the deaths of women in the area and the suspense created by the constant conflict between Aaron and a father/son duo make for a great read. But Burke lost me with the final confrontation and the ending. I am impressed with the quality of the writing, but the story left me feeling "meh!"

I would like to thank Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for allowing me to read this ARC free for an honest review. In the 1960s Aaron Broussard likes to ride the rails and perform migrant work. A veteran of the Korean War, he suffers from dissociative personality disorder (he has three personalities), and suffers from blackouts. When he gets hired at a tomato farm outside Denver he meets several people, not all of them kind, but one of which he falls in love with and makes him want to settle down. Nothing works out for him. I decided to read this book because it sounded like a great mystery. It was, only a mystery that answered no questions. It made me feel like I'd wasted my time reading it. This was my first James Lee Burke novel and I’m pretty sure it’ll be my last. It’s not that it was a terribly bad novel and at least I liked some of the characters. My problem with it is that it was the slowest mystery I’ve ever read and left me thinking “Why were these people doing the things they did?” Such as, his boss is killed in front of her and his widow just pretends he went back to Boston for a visit. At the end of the story Aaron just moves on without any real explanation of what actually happened in the canyon. Perhaps there was no explanation besides the fact that some of the people there were dealing drugs. I’m still left wondering what the hell was flying around in the canyon scaring Aaron and Jo Anne out of their wits. The story gets one star. The fact that I liked some of the characters and that it only took me two days to read it gives it another star. My apologies to Mr. Burke and fans of his Holland series, but this just really WASN’T my cup of tea. I'm someone who likes answers and explanations.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the opportunity to read this novel in prepublication and for an honest review.

There are few writers who can turn a descriptive phrase like Mr. Burke. His use of adjectives and descriptive metaphors is, bar none, the best I’ve ever read. He paints pictures with his words that are a feast for the eyes and the brain. I’ve read every Robicheaux book and many of the Holland books.

Another Kind of Eden drifts been reality and the mysticism in the 1960’s – when life was simpler and the world was still adjusting to post war life while the Cuban Missle Crisis was looming. Our main character Aaron lands as a migrant worker at the farm of Jude Lowry. A seemingly kind man who hired Aaron on as his foreman.

Between the good work, and the woman, Jo Anne, that he meets, Aaron is living a life he called “a good life.” Another kind of Eden is a story of Aaron’s love and loyalty, justice for those wronged by brutality, and offers ample reason to believe that not everything is as it seems – or as one “sees.”

It’s a captivating novel of the American West during the 1960’s when most of the country was embroiled in peace, love and protest. Read it.

This is the first James Lee Burke novel I’ve read that wasn’t part of the Dave Robicheaux Series. This is the third book of the Holland family saga. It works as a standalone.
Aaron Broussard is an educated young man, an aspiring writer, who's been riding the rails and finding manual labor jobs in 1962 as he explores the country. He takes a job on the McDuffy family farm in Colorado. He quickly runs afoul of the Vickers, a father-son duo who enjoy gratuitous violence. He starts a relationship with a beautiful young painter, who has her own weird relationship with a local professor who seems to be taking advantage of her.
This is an in depth character study of Aaron who has a bit of a dark past including some jail time and unexplained blackouts. It’s told with him looking back from some future date at these events.
The writing is poetic at times. I found myself underlining numerous passages. The story is extremely dark with a bit of the supernatural about it. The plot involves the fight of the average man standing up to true evil. As much as I liked Burke’s writing, I can’t say the story really worked for me. The ending was very ambiguous and several questions remained unanswered.
My thanks to netgalley and Simon & Schuster for an advance copy of this book.

I thank the author and publisher for this ARC of Burke's new novel.
Burke is back, just as gritty as he's even been - maybe even more so if possible.

He delivers a hard boiled narrator who is tied to the world of academia and publishing while straddling the world of Tom Joad type who still wandered in 1960s America (and who still do in the world of Nomadlands in the 2020s).

In the bizarre world of a PTSD Korean War vet who in the early 1960s becomes a drifter, Burke carries us into the sordid world that lies below the surface of the American Dream.

Compare this this the David Lynch's vision in his movie "Blue Velvet".
Even better still, compare this to Conrad's "Heart of Darkness". I think Burke here picks up Capt. Kurtz's dark psychoses, carries them in the 20th century, and then plops them in our laps here in the 21st.

Careful. This narrator is totally unreliable as we he reports the real terror and horror that spurts from his tortured, schizoid soul.

Perhaps my favorite author of all time, James Lee Burke is an Edgar Award Winner (twice), a prolific author with 39 books to his credit, a gentleman philosopher, and an avid student of human nature. His writing skills are second to none and his character studies are nuanced by some of the great turmoils this world suffers from.

Whether he comments on our damage to the environment, the horrific destruction of unnecessary wars, those unfortunates who suffer from various forms of mental illness, or the myriad problems endured by those addicted to alcohol or drugs, Mr. Burke savors the goodness he sees in spite of the impairments affecting their actions.

Almost all of his protagonists and antagonists are imperfect heros who struggle to overcome their predilictions for bad behavior and manage on occasion to function in an unexpected manner, illustrating the struggle between good and evil while surprising the reader with unforeseen conduct. He encourages the reader to look for good in the common man instead of painting him/her in a solid color of black.

His prose is descriptive without being wordy and his main characters always show strength through adversity. despite the difficult challenges they face. Rather than kick the can down the road, James Lee Burke takes adversity in stride and proudly carries the banner of hope.instead of despair. His novels always teach me something new, an important element that many authors neglect to bring to the table. I thank him for that.

An immersive novel set in the 1960s American West at the height of the drug and counter culture. Lyrical writing that examines deeper themes of good and evil; overall a steady, slow paced, atmospheric read. Parts of the narrative get bogged down with multiple side stories and some of the chemistry between characters is lacking- overall thought it was an interesting read that will appeal to lovers of drama, slow burn literary fiction.

3.5 stars

Twenty-six-year old Aaron Holland Broussard grew up in Texas, fought in the Korean war, studied journalism at the University of Missouri, and wrote a novel that he's submitted to publishers. Aaron is now riding the rails out West, absorbing experiences for his next book.

The story opens in 1962, when Aaron hops off a train in Colorado and gets a job on Mr. Jude Lowry's farm near the town of Trinidad. There's a bunkhouse full of employees, and a general sense of camaraderie and friendship. However, Aaron's closest co-workers are Spud Caudhill - a homely man who has a passion for dago red wine and prostitutes; and Cotton Williams - who has long gray hair, an unseeing white eye, and a liking for comic books.

Aaron is intelligent, well-spoken, and compassionate, but he has disquiet in his soul. Aaron feels guilty about the death of his best friend Saber Bledsoe in Korea; he's lost a girl he thought was the love of his life; and he suffers from non-alcoholic blackouts, during which he becomes belligerent and violent. Thus Aaron tries to keep a tight rein on his anger, to avoid killing someone.

Trouble starts when Mr. Lowry sends Aaron, Spud, and Cotton to Trinidad with a load of tomatoes. A United Farm Workers bumper sticker on the truck gets Aaron and his friends beat up by four goons, .and instead of going after the ruffians, Sheriff Wade Benbow jails Aaron, Spud, and Cotton overnight.

It turns out Benbow wants Aaron to help him catch a serial rapist who's killed several girls, including Benbow's granddaughter. Benbow thinks the killer works on Mr. Lowry's farm, and he wants Aaron to spy on his fellow workers.

In the meantime, a pretty waitress named Jo Anne McDuffy gets in touch with Aaron. She tells him the men who beat him up were led by a creep called Darrel Vickers, son of wealthy bigwig Rueben Vickers. Jo Anne says both Vickers' are buckets of shit and Aaron should stay away from them.

Aaron is immediately attracted to Jo Anne, and learns she's a painter studying under art professor Henri Devos. Aaron meets Devos and hates him on sight, thinking he's a smarmy predator that wants to take advantage of Jo Anne. Aaron and Devos compete for Jo Anne's attention, and the girl seems torn between them.

Burke's books always pit good against evil, and - from this point on - Aaron is plagued by sinister forces.

Rueben Vickers shows up at the Lowry farm, enraged about his son Darrel being accused of assault. One thing leads to another and Rueben repeatedly lashes Aaron's face with a quirt, after which Aaron tells Rueben 'you have a black soul, you're a bully, and you carry an incubus that will cost you your soul.' This deeply affects the old bully, and - as it turns out - preys on his mind. Further encounters between Aaron and the Vickers' escalate the situation.

Aaron falls hard for Jo Anne, and is upset that she lets Henri Devos hang around her house. Moreover, the professor brings a busload of penniless hippies and thugs, who park on Jo Anne's property, plug into her electric line, eat her food, etc. Aaron has a run-in with the miscreants, and - later on - a violent confrontation with Devos.

As in some of Burke's other books, the story has elements of magical realism. Aaron talks to ghosts, .and has an encounter with supernatural entities that are malevolent and dangerous.

All this leads to a momentous climax that unveils shocking secrets.

Burke's talent for depicting landscape and atmosphere is unsurpassed, and his evil characters belong in a place worse than hell. I enjoyed the book, my one quibble being that Burke's books all seem to follow the same paradigm.....evil forces threatening good people.

I'd recommend the book to fans of James Lee Burke and readers who enjoy mystery and/or horror stories.

Thanks to Netgalley, James Lee Burke, and Simon and Schuster for a copy of the book.

Another Kund of Eden by James Lee Burke

This book is set back in the 69s and gives you a little nostalgic look back...interesting story that held my attention wasn't expecting the shift the story takes but I held on and rode it out....thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this book and letting me leave my opinion.

Burke’s latest is a gift of magical lyrical breathtaking language on every page. A brilliant examination of an intersection in time between the Korean War and the inception of hippy drug culture, between good and evil people, suspect motives, and fugue states intersecting reality. Burke excels at descriptive language and terse conversation and the book positively sings throughout. He highlights both the evils men commit and the evils humanity hides. Highly recommend.

I hadn't read a JLB book in a long time, and was excited for this one. I enjoyed this, thought the main character was interesting, and the story held my interest. Aaron Broussard is a complex man, with many hidden facets that periodically come to the surface. I appreciated the look back into the 60's, and will confess surprise as to the direction the novel took in the final 1/3 or so.

I would read others in the series.

Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the free electronic ARC of Another Kind of Eden in exchange for my free and honest review.

Let me begin by saying, I love anything and everything James Lee Burke writes. ❤ JLB is one of my hands- down favorite authors. His characters are flawed, relatable and most always loveable. Settings are described in a way that allows the reader to see and feel the places described.

This book follows Aaron Holland Broussard on a fool's errand - my terminology. He crosses paths with the wrong folks, falls in love with the wrong girl and basically gets himself in so much trouble.

The setting is after the Korean War, small town outside of Denver. Aaron has returned from the war whereas his best friend died on the battlefield. He is a writer and former teacher who has decided to ride the rails and work as a farmhand.

Enter the bad guys...Aaron crosses paths with Darrel Vickers and his friends by happenstance and sets off a feud that will last the entire novel.

Enter the love interest, Jo Anne...I am sure JLB meant her to read this way, so I don't feel too badly for not completely loving this character and not rooting for her.

You can read the publisher's summary for a brief overview. What I include in my reviews are my thoughts and feelings about the novel and are purely my own.


**********spoiler alert***************

My one major criticism of the novel is the inclusion of the winged creatures in the canyon scenes. I know this is the fight between good and evil but feel like they are just add-in creatures that detract from the storyline, not add to it.

How to say this? James Lee Burke is a poet who pours his poetry into beautifully crafted, place-based crime novels. Complex characters and intricate plots carry his stories forward. There is often a sin-and-redemption theme. The truly evil people always lose but the good guys don't always win--at least not the kind of "win" they (and we) were hoping for. Indeed, they often make big mistakes while trying to do good.
But it is Burke's choice of words that makes me stop and reread entire sentences, paragraphs and chapters. Consider: "The air was bright with a clean, cold smell like water dipped out of a rain barrel in winter." Or amazing glimpses into nature:: "The sun was blood red between two mountains that seemed to teeter on the edge of the earth." In ANOTHER KIND OF EDEN (the 11th starring the Holland family), Burke describes the villain's face as looking like "a bowl full of walnuts." And the villain's wife "had an animated sternness about her that suggested a conjugal situation similar to waking up each morning on a medieval rack."
ANOTHER KIND OF EDEN takes place in the 1960s in a dusty, sparsely populated, sometimes desolate part of southern Colorado that borders New Mexico. The mesquite-dotted mesas are said to be haunted by Comanche spirits. The nearest "big town" is Trinidad, the next biggest is Walsenburg--and he captures that scene perfectly.
To tell any more would spoil the story but, I will say this: Burke's many fans will be satisfied.

James Lee Burke has a gift of letting us get into the mind of his protagonist. Although, it is never a very clear place to be.
There is good and bad in each of us and in this novel, you can't always tell the good guys from the bad guys and the ending surely shows that. It was not what I expected at all.

I was so engrossed in this story that I was surprised how quickly I read it. One gets taken along for the ride and when it ends, you wish you had just a wee bit left to save for tomorrow. I have a feeling we will be given more, just not tomorrow. There were some loose ends that I really want to follow.

While this novel works as a stand-alone, I knew as soon as I read the name Holland that it was part of the broader Burke universe. I believe The Jealous Kind introduces us to Aaron Holland Broussard and having not read that particular Burke novel I felt that I was definitely missing some back-story. That being said, I did enjoy Another Kind of Eden and Aaron is a fascinating character. I will probably seek out The Jealous Kind as it appears to be a coming of age story for Aaron and perhaps will shed more light on some of the characters and situations mentioned in AKOE. Highly recommend for fans of Mr. Burke who are already familiar with the Holland clan and the various branches of their family tree, but in the case of AKOE, those previous novels may not be required reading for new-comers.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an advanced readers' copy

There are more moveable parts in the human psyche than there are words to describe each tiny mechanism.

James Lee Burke offers a panoramic view of what lies at the heart of evil. Another Kind of Eden takes us into the depths of darkness in which individuals dwell by choice and by action. People with dead eyes and dead souls who seriously believe that there is no accountability for deeds done. And the scope widens with the realities of War where the masses decide your fate in an instant.

Aaron Holland Broussard is a complicated man. He walks the higher roads in life, but he painfully is aware of the dark places within his head. The Korean War and the loss of his best friend weigh heavily upon him. Some days he works through it and some days it works through him. Aaron has moments where the memories may be real or may be imagined. It's getting harder and harder to separate them.

It's 1962 and Aaron views a blur of boxcar scenery. He jumps out at Trinidad, Colorado and takes a job loading the last of the tomato crop on Jude Lowry's farm. He and Lowry have found a working relationship alongside workers Spud and Cotton. Lowry is a WW I Medal of Honor recipient. Cotton served in WW II and received the Silver Star. Spud from East Kentucky can talk your ear off. Those who serve usually fail to speak of it.

But one evening in Trinidad, Aaron, Spud, and Cotton are attacked by a group of men as they exit a cafe after dinner. The three are beaten brutally and the sheriff throws them in jail for disorderly conduct. Not a sign of the perpetrators though. But we'll meet up with them later. Aaron does meet up with the waitress from the cafe and she discloses the names of the bad guys. And here is where Aaron falls hard for Jo Anne and Jo Anne will inadvertently be a conduit that leads to those unspeakable bottom feeders of life.

James Lee Burke is one of my favorite authors. He can vividly paint background scenery in just a few strokes. His best characters are usually those who have deep aches in their bones and an emptiness so ingrained that there is very little water left in the well. His passages almost beg to be re-read and savored in the moment. Another Kind of Eden speaks to societal ills that linger and stay from generation to generation. You'll recognize them as they surface throughout. True realism and magical realism meet on the playing field of life.

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review. My thanks to Simon & Schuster and to the talented James Lee Burke for the opportunity.

ANOTHER KIND OF EDEN by James Lee Burke is based on the adult life of Aaron Holland Broussard who has chosen a life without strings attached and is willing to live a live free of the comforts most would want, but instead lives much like a railroad tramp from the depression would’ve back in the depression era; yet this takes place primarily in the early ‘60s.

Aaron is an interesting character who is at times compassionate and understanding of others, usually those who are marginalized by society and specifically those in power that he interacts with in a way that puts him in harm’s way, yet those who see this and care about him fear that he doesn’t care about his own safety or future, and he often appears to be fearless in his open defiance of authority figures.

Settled into a regular job at a farm that fits his desire to work outdoors and be left alone for the most part, he develops a strong relationship with the farmer and his wife that is based on mutual respect and affection; but something takes place that seemingly involves the son of a man that Aaron has come up against who is a feared and evil man who has recently abused Aaron physically in front of others, and this threatens his safety as he decides not to knuckle under to threats by his foes and local law enforcement figures.

Investigation into finding out who is responsible for the crime he cannot turn aside from leads him to discover hidden things from the past of those he comes in contact with that makes his self appointed task more difficult as he comes upon more questions than answers.

Can Aaron accomplish the task he’s committed to while risking his own personal safety (and of those he cares about), and what does he really know about the woman he’s fallen for and who she really is?

Great book that brings Woody Guthrie, “Grapes of Wrath”, and “On The Road” to mind with the setting and rebellious nature of the leading character, although when things get a bit strange near the end I had a bit of difficulty with the transition from a story with a retro-rural feel to something else entirely, but it all works out in the end and was an interesting departure for the author from from his “Dave Robicheaux” series that I love, and I look forward to future novels in that series as well the “Holland Family Saga”.

5 stars.