Rain Gods: A Novel

"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’s authored thirty-seven novels and two short story collections. He lives in Missoula, Montana.

Will Patton's numerous film credits include Remember the Titans, The Punisher, The Mothman Prophesies, Armageddon, and The Spitfire Grill. He starred in the TNT miniseries Into the West and on the CBS series The Agency, and won Obie Awards in the theater for his performances in Fool for Love and What Did He See.