Another Kind of Eden

James Lee Burke is deep.  You may think you're about to read about another Jack Reacher  - a wanderer who saves lost souls, some of whom don't even know that they are lost - but then you find yourself musing along with the main character about the nature of death.

Another Kind of Eden is a tricky read.  Is the author hiding behind multiple personalities and blackouts as an explanation for the inexplicable.  I'm usually put off by that.  Somehow, in this book, it just adds to the mystery.

There are inexplicable appearances.  There are unexplained flying things.  There is heroism and bullying and the strangest assortment of characters ever brought together in 241 pages.  And there is love - for a lost grandchild, for a lost friend, and between two lost souls thrown together in a southern border ranching town.

There are unsolved mysteries, leaving the reader to speculate - were we introduced to the killer or are the crimes just that : unrelated, unsolved homicides?  There are relationships only revealed in the penultimate scene, relationships that make you smile and others that make you frown and some that are just plain weird.

It's a great read.  It will leave you thinking.  It's accessible and odd and worth putting off doing the laundry so that you can finish it up in one afternoon.

I think you'll thank me.