I am three quarters of the way through James Lee Burke’s Rain Gods (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009). It is one of the author’s Hackberry Holland novels set in Southwest Texas. I am also beginning to think that its author has exceeded the limits of the genre and approached the level of literature. The following quote is what goes through the mind of a strange mass murderer who calls himself the Preacher as he sits cradling a Thompson submachine gun on his lap.

He did not know the hour and never wore jewelry or a watch when he worked. He did not measure the passage of time in terms of minutes or hours but in terms of events. There were no vehicles on the county road. There was no sign of activity inside the house he was about to invade. There were no insomniacs or early risers turning on lights in the neighborhood. There was a fire burning in the grass, and horses were nickering in the darkness, the smoke providing a plausible explanation for their sense of alarm. The sky was booming with thunderous explosions; not those of dry lightning but the kind that promised serious rain, perhaps even the type of monsoon that gave back life to a desert. In spite of the acrid tinge of smoke inside the mist, the night was as lovely and normal as one could expect during the late summer in Southwest Texas.

Preacher stuffed his trousers inside the tops of his boots and up-ended his Thompson in one hand, the other gripping his cane, then began walking through a thicket toward the ranch house in the distance, his face as impervious as molded plastic to both the brambles and the rain.