Burke, of course, has made his name with the Dave Robicheaux books, set in and around the bayou country of Louisiana, fictions that are notionally in the detective genre but that transcend any narrow limits to stand as very fine examples of modern American writing. Two for Texas is one of his earlier efforts, first published in the late Eighties, and shows this very fine writer flexing his literary muscles. Set in the last century, it is the story of young Son Holland, an orphan boy wrongly accused of robbery and incarcerated in a Louisiana penal camp. Unable to stand the daily horrors of the place, he breaks out, killing a guard in the process. Accompanied by the older and more ruthless Hugh Allison, he makes a break for Texas, getting there only to end up in the midst of the final tragic battle for the Alamo. Even at this early stage, author Burke's distinctiveness is evident in his feel for the land, the aching beauty of his descriptive passages, the intuitiveness of his insight into the emotions of men who live their lives close to violence. This is Cormac McCarthy territory, minus the biblical aloofness. And what a fine body of work Lee Burke has penned since then.