Rain Gods reintroduces a Burke character we haven't seen since 1971's Lay Down My Sword and Shield: Hackberry Holland, cousin of Billy Bob Holland, star of Burke's series of western crime novels.
The sleepy Texas town of which he's sheriff wakes up when he finds the corpses of nine Thai women buried in shallow graves behind an old church.
Hackberry thinks Iraq vet Pete Flores has something to do with it, but the real villains here are New Orleans mobsters displaced by Hurricane Katrina and psychopaths such as Jack Collins.
Known as Preacher, Collins is one of Burke's scariest low-life creations: a former pest exterminator who "thinks he may be the left hand of God, the giver of death".
By contrast, Hackberry is a dapper gent at the end of his career – his wife dead, his children gone.
We keep reading because we're gripped, but also to make sure he's OK.