HOUSE OF THE RISING SUN contains what may be the best opening and closing paragraphs I’ve ever read in a work of fiction. As for what is found between these two worthy sections, the prose takes on a life of its own. The book features one of the most complex plots that author James Lee Burke has ever undertaken --- full of tragedy, romance, violence and mysticism --- and does so with sure-footedness and without a misstep. Reading it is like running down a flight of stairs with a basement full of gold in sight.

For those who love reading, recommending HOUSE OF THE RISING SUN is possibly a two-edged sword; nothing else may ever quite stand up to it. There is also the certain knowledge that whatever I write here will not do this fine book --- written in what may be considered the twilight of Burke’s career, but for the fact that his sun is seemingly frozen at high noon --- the justice it deserves.

"HOUSE OF THE RISING SUN contains what may be the best opening and closing paragraphs I’ve ever read in a work of fiction. As for what is found between these two worthy sections, the prose takes on a life of its own."

In recent years, Burke has found a wide and vibrant canvas in the form of the Holland family, particularly Hackberry Holland. The semi-defrocked Texas Ranger is the focus of HOUSE OF THE RISING SUN, which centers on two points in a quarter-century period. It begins in 1916, with a very bedraggled Hackberry in Mexico. His mission is to find Ishmael, his long-lost and estranged son who is a captain in the United States Army. Hackberry is at the point of death but for the mercy of an enigmatic woman named Beatrice DeMolay, the madam of a Mexican brothel whose intentions are not fully revealed right away. His stay there comes to an abrupt end, punctuated by his fateful decision to destroy an arms cache and plunder a hidden treasure that includes a stolen artifact rumored to be the Holy Grail. The arms and the treasure, including the artifact, belong to an Austrian arms dealer named Arnold Beckman, who may be much more than he appears to be.

How Hackberry has come to be in these straits is explained in a very lengthy flashback to 1891. While still married to one woman, he takes up with another. They conceive a child together, but their plans are ruined by a minor Machiavellian maneuver that changes Hackberry’s life for the mid-term future. However, he is fully complicit in his slow, silent downfall. As is demonstrated time and again throughout the book, Hackberry is a haunted Johnny Appleseed, planting the seeds of his own potential destruction. His one chance at redemption --- and reconciliation with his son and the true love of his life --- seemingly occurs when what is believed to be the Grail comes into his life. The artifact soon becomes a pawn in a deadly game that holds Ishmael’s life in the balance. The violence that has ruled Hackberry’s life for so long may not be enough to win the most important of days, as he tries to save his son and preserve what is left of his own innate goodness.

HOUSE OF THE RISING SUN contains hints of topics touched upon and explored by Bierce and Melville (among others), but in the end, this is all Burke. It’s a superlative way to end the year, strongly recommended to all who love and appreciate the acts of reading and writing. It doesn’t get any better than this.