In The Jealous Kind (2016), set in early-1950s Galveston, Aaron Holland Broussard was a teenager in the grips of passion. In this latest chapter in Burke's multigenerational Holland saga, it's 10 years later, 1962, on the cusp of the hippie era, and Aaron, now a nightmare-haunted Korean War vet, is working on a ranch near Denver and trying to write. Like all of Burke's heroes, Aaron can't keep his mouth shut or his fists at his sides. First, he defends a woman who's being harassed by her professor, which leads to encounters with some early-wave flower children, one of whom is less peacenik and more predator. Meanwhile, Aaron gets on the wrong side of a bent businessman and his son, both of whom seem driven by something way beyond garden-variety meanness. The supernatural, especially in the form of demons, has become a near-constant presence in Burke's fiction, and here those demons are ready to rumble. Like Dave Robicheaux, Burke's other series hero, Aaron has "always believed in the unseen world," so he's not completely surprised by the vibes he's getting from his adversaries, but he has no conception of the otherworldly carnage that awaits him in the book's finale. Incorporating elements of horror into otherwise realistic thrillers is a thing these days, but few manage it with Burke's special eloquence, at once melancholic and macabre.

Aaron Holland Broussard is a Korean War veteran, writer, and vagabond with memory lapses and dissociative personality disorder. In the early 1960s, he jumps off a train in Colorado and lands a job at a farm (following his appearance in Burke's 1952-set The Jealous Kind). Aaron's troubles begin when he and his fellow farmhands are attacked near Ludlow, CO. Joanne McDuffy witnesses the attack and warns Aaron that the perpetrators, Rueben Vickers and his son Darrel, are pure evil. Perceptive, quick-witted Aaron finds an equal match in Joanne. He'd like to settle into a relationship with her, but he's continually thwarted--by the Vickerses' violence; a detective bent on revenge; a bus full of beatniks; unsolved murders; and the demons, metaphorical and otherwise, that plague Aaron. VERDICT Dark backstories linger behind each complex character in this action-packed novel. Readers who first meet Aaron here will want to read previous novels in Burke's "Holland Family" saga.--Emily Hamstra, Seattle

Ten years after dropping him in Houston, Burke picks up the story of Aaron Holland Broussard in 1962 Colorado. The story is as eventful as ever. When Aaron, Spud Caudill, and Cotton Williams, all of whom work at Jude Lowry's dairy and produce farm, make a delivery in Lowry's truck, a pair of tough guys, incensed at the United Farm Workers bumper sticker Aaron never noticed, beat them up. As if to rub salt into the wound, the ringleader's father, Rueben Vickers, brings his son out to Lowry's to demand an explanation for how his boy Darrel got bruised. Aaron, a man who's "incapable of deliberately doing wrong" even when he's "surrounded by evil," doesn't lose his cool, but the serious moral judgments he levels against the old man provoke Rueben to whip him on the spot. His head-over-heels attraction to cafe waitress/painter Jo Anne McDuffy doesn't offer much relief: She's slow to reciprocate his interest, and her involvement with Henri Devos, the smarmy, self-satisfied art professor who's borrowed $500 from her, is murky and gets even murkier once Aaron meets hophead Marvin Fogel and the other pre-Haight groupies Devos is hosting in a school bus. As usual, Burke orchestrates a series of escalating encounters between Aaron and the Vickers father and son that promise a violent release, but this time the violence is mostly withheld (except for the obligatory backstories and some nameless prostitutes recently killed) until the ending, which has all the intensity of a fever dream and not much more explanatory power. The haunted hero is last spotted near Flagstaff, from which fans will surely look forward to hearing more. And more. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

It's 1962 in bestseller MWA Grand Master Burke's captivating sequel to 2016's The Jealous Kind, and Aaron Holland Broussard, a drifting aspiring novelist, hops off a boxcar near Denver and finds work on a large farm. After the son of a local tyrannical businessman assaults Aaron and some coworkers, Jo Anne McDuffy, a beautiful art student, warns Aaron not to seek revenge. But as much as Aaron, who begins a relationship with Jo Anne, tries to suppress his violent instincts, trouble won't let him be, with local goons and law enforcement harassing him. Meanwhile, a nefarious professor circles Jo Anne with dubious intentions. Suffering nonchemical blackouts and warding off memories of his time in the Korean War, Aaron slowly unravels as the majestic beauty of the west turns into a hellscape of murdered women, cults, and mysterious forces that might not be of this world. Sharp prose and distinctive characters help propel Aaron's journey from earnest farmhand to tormented soul in a world of horrors. Suspense fans will be well satisfied. Agents: Philip Spitzer and Lukas Ortiz, Philip G. Spitzer Literary. (Aug.)