• Feast Day of Fools

  • A Novel
  • By: James Lee Burke
  • Narrated by: Will Patton
  • Length: 16 hrs and 11 mins
  • 4.2 out of 5 stars (1,878 ratings)

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Feast Day of Fools  By  cover art

Feast Day of Fools

By: James Lee Burke
Narrated by: Will Patton
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Publisher's summary

Celebrated crime master and two-time Edgar Award winner James Lee Burke returns with a gorgeously crafted, brutally resonant chronicle of violence along the Texas-Mexico border.

Sheriff Hackberry Holland patrols a small Southwest Texas border town, meting out punishment and delivering justice in his small square of this magnificent but lawless land. When an alcoholic ex-boxer named Danny Boy Lorca begs to be locked up after witnessing a man tortured to death by a group of bandits, Hack and his deputy, Pam Tibbs, slowly extract the Indian man’s gruesome tale. It becomes clear that the desert contains a multitude of criminals, including serial murderer Preacher Jack Collins (whom The New York Times called “one of Burke’s most inspired villains”).

Holland’s investigation leads him to Anton Ling, a mysterious Chinese woman whose steely demeanor and aristocratic beauty compel Hackberry to return to her home again and again as the investigation unfolds.

James Lee Burke is at his engrossing and atmospheric best in this, his 13th novel, as Hackberry plumbs the depths of man’s inhumanity to man - from killers-for-hire, to the U.S. government, to the misguided souls in search of a better life across the border.

©2011 James Lee Burke (P)2011 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

Critic reviews

“[O]utstanding.... The richness of Burke's characters, always one of his strengths, reaches new heights.... The intricately plotted narrative takes numerous unexpected turns, and Burke handles his trademark themes of social justice and corruption with his usual subtlety.” ( Publishers Weekly)
“As Burke steers the elaborately structured narrative toward its violent conclusion, we are afforded looks inside the tortured psyches of his various combatants, finding there the most unlikely of connections between the players. This is one of Burke’s biggest novels, in terms of narrative design, thematic richness, and character interplay, and he rises to the occasion superbly, a stand-up guy at the keyboard, as always... Though he is best known for his Dave Robicheaux series, the broader canvas of this Hackberry Holland adventure makes a fittingly grand stage on which to play out such a landmark event in American publishing.” (Bill Ott, Booklist)
“The dialogue scenes, along with the action sequences, the South Texas landscape and the indelibly conflicted characters make you want to give Burke a medal.” ( Kirkus Reviews)

What listeners say about Feast Day of Fools

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Mr. Burke has become relentlessly violent.

In the beginning of his career I thought that Mr. Burke was extraordinarily talented. He could evoke a sense of place like no other writer. You felt like you were in the Bayou Teche, walking down the streets, feeling the heat and humidity, interacting with the people who lived their whole lives there. Dave Robicheau and Cleve Purcell were violent men, but the situations they found themselves in gave rise to the violence. Dave's alcoholism was a subject that lent him some empathy.
Now, I regret to say, Mr. Burke's overwhelming preoccupation with violence is completely off-putting and monotonous. I have read several of the recent books, including The Jealous Kind. In these books we find continuous violence and chaos. Men do almost nothing except insult each other, threaten each other, provoke violence and justify it with utter nonsense. The protagonists and the villains are the same people. They think of nothing but violence, other than the brief moments when they are devastated by love. The women are perfectly one-dimensional. They are saints. The men are reduced to mice that are enslaved to these heavenly creatures.
This has become a terrific disappointment for me. I will buy no more books by Mr. Burke. The violence has become laughably predictable and cartoonish. There are no motivations other than the need to revenge themselves for slights. They treat each other like trash. The same talent that once allowed us to stroll through lovely locations as if we were born to be there is now reduced to a lowly, mindless need to punish. Mexicans are insulted as being subhuman. Children grow up in homes that are full of disturbed parents, lost in the world around them, usually violent themselves. Sometimes the women are mentally ill. I see no respite for this unrelenting torrent of the absolute worst of human behavior. I don't know what has happened to Mr. Burke to precipitate this horrible denouement, but at this point I don't care. I am done. Don't waste your money.

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Writer could not figure out how to end this book!

What happened to the ending? The story was rolling along until half way through, oops, it stopped. It seemed the author could not think how to end this book. Great reader, though.

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the usual suspects drop by

Jim wrote this one with a cast of people that I would not touch with a ten foot pole, and is all the more reason to stay pretty far from south Texas. The usual suspects are Audie Murphy, Ma Barker and pretty boy Floyd, who strangely inhabit Hackberry's mind as they do Dave Robichaux, Burke's main character, both of these guys are elderly war veterans that spent time marinating in bottles, and that probably says something about the author. The performance by Will Patton could probably be done in his sleep, but is nevertheless quite good and since I read all of Burkes novels, it would seem quite a loss to do without Patton's narration, in fact when I see Patton on TV I start looking around for Clete. How long can Burke continue with his geriatric inebriated Don Quixote's? Well we will see, (or I hope so anyway)?

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Perhaps the most violent work or art ever penned.

James Lee Burke is a truly great artist. Yet, his work is a riddle to me, although I take great joy from each page of his books. Yes, I have enjoyed all of the books. What I like about each of them is -- first off -- the quality of his writing. His descriptions of a scene, or a person, or an act of violence are clear and flowing and simply make you wonder why nobody else has ever figured how to use the language in exactly the same way.

What causes me to wonder and question the man is simply where does he get the inspiration for those murderous, terribly violent and shockingly original characters about which he writes. Several of his heroes have been officers of the law. Although they are good cops, they are always deeply flawed. They seen to corner the market on violent acts. Once, one of Burke's characters dumped a whole pot of scalding hot gumbo on the head of a criminal suspect. In Feast Day, the lead character -- Hackberry Holland -- hits a bartender across the mouth with the fat end of a pool cue, just to see if he still had his old swing.

The plots of Burke's books are often so violent that you have to sit back and wonder if there are people in the world who can actually perform such acts. One of the villains in Feast Day has a Thompson .45 machine gun. He uses it frequently and with great joy to dismember his victims

The plot of Feast Day is -- as to be expected -- a bit strange. There's an oriental woman who worked for the CIA. She still feels deep guilt about calling down the wrath of modern day weapons on people who wanted nothing more than life on the land of their birth. There's a nasty Russian who plans to capture and sell to Al Qaida a man who can provide the blueprints for the Predator drone.

You get face to face with a lot of original characters. You almost grow used to the violence. But you never, never have a moment to shift your thoughts to anything outside of the pages of Feast Day of Fools.

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A tome well worth the listen

This is perhaps James Burke's finest work to date. The listener cannot get visually closer to Burke's descriptions. His lyrical gift flows like a river and his dialogue is as real and clever as they come. The story takes a while to unravel, but the pace is terrific and worth the wait. There are so many well developed characters here that skillfully mixes the bad that men do with the good that we are given people whose individual spectrums run the gamut. It is about the paradoxes within alll of us and the range of colors humans manifest.

That sums it up-color-color in character, color in storyline, color in dialogue and narrative. More different bad guys with different agendas than you can imagine all played out against the western skies. They're after the same guy for very different reasons. Artfully complex but skillfully presented to easily follow.

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So much violence

Will Patton turns characters into friends with his wonderful vocal interpretations. James Lee Burke paints pictures with words that let you see, feel, and practically smell a scene. Unfortunately, Burke's characters seem to get more sadistic with each novel. The level of violence and the physical and verbal abuse have risen to levels that detract from the story. Scene after scene deteriorates into obscene language, torture, and/or graphically described suffering. And certain scathing psychological putdowns return repeatedly from novel to novel. I guess there are limited ways to be gross & disgusting. I'm sorry a writer as talented as Mr. Burke has become so sadistic. I don't think I'll listen to another Burke novel any time soon. Too bad, because I like the introspection and complexity of characters, and I love listening to Will Patton. If you like man's inhumanity to man in every third scene, you'll like this book. If beatings, burnings, and cursings make you flinch, stay away.

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Vintage James Lee Burke + Perfect Pitch Narration

I've never read or listened to a James Lee Burke book I didn't like, so I come in with that prejudice. This hero, like Dave Robicheaux, is battle-scarred,demon-chased and damaged but not dead yet, still alight with desire for love and justice.

As always with Burke, a solid story, excellent villains, descriptions of landscape and characters that rival any fine writer's out there, notes of redemption. Burke's language is, as always elegiac and my only gripe in listening to it vs. reading it is....come'on what bad guys speak with such poetic erudition? It works on the page, and it's part of Burke's flow but in narration it's just too gorgeous for the down and out. But I like hearing it enough that it's okay. Burke always provokes thought, he keeps us entertained.

The narrator is perfectly paired with the material, and the "Feast Day of Fools" metaphor (there's a bit of a lecture by one of the improbably bad guys about metaphors in the book) is wonderfully wrought.

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Another OK listen

First, let me say the narration is awesome. I really enjoyed the gruff voice and it helped the story line very well. I wish I could say the same for the story and its characters. Even though I finished the book, I really wanted it to end much sooner. Perhaps it was a tad too long and a little too contrived for my taste. It isn’t a bad story and surely not a great page turner. But I can see why this type of novel is popular amongst other listeners. It just wasn’t my type of book.

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I love Hackberry Holland!

Will Patton does a great job with all these voices. It's a little incredible that Sheriff Holland can do the things he does at his advanced age, but Patton brings this flawed man to life and makes you care about him and his deputy, love-struck Pam Tibbs. He also gives an interesting voice to arch-enemy Preacher Jack Collins, and convincingly puts the 3 on the same team, albeit briefly. The pace is slow at times, but the story engaging, and the characters worth knowing.

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Perfect pairing

As many have already written for this book and others, Burke's prose and Patton's reading make a perfect pairing. There is no reader at Audible I like more than Will Patton, in spite of his Russian accent that is even worse than Star Trek's Chekov. I listen to Burke's books multiple times, sometimes oblivious to the plot and just simmering in the imagery and sound.

There is a generous supply of bad guys in this book. At first it seems like too many bad guys, but Burke manages to make them all interesting.

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