Flags on the Bayou, the latest standalone novel by James Lee Burke, is set in Louisiana in the latter days of the Civil War, though it's not a war novel. It's a stellar literary novel exploring the trauma, guilt and other emotions a devastating event like war imposes on the people whose life it overturns.

In the fall of 1863, the Union army has occupied much of Louisiana, the Confederate army is in retreat, and the vacuum between the two opposing forces is the Red Legs, guerrillas commanded by a maniac who preys on everyone his army confronts.

To tell his tale, Burke has created a rich array of characters who reveal themselves and those around them in alternating chapters. These characters include Hannah Laveau, suspected of being a voodoo woman and who is accused of murdering a plantation owner who raped her; Wade Lufkin, an artist and pacifist haunted by a violent act he committed on the battlefield; Florence Milton, an abolitionist school teacher who rescues Hannah from jail and flees with her into the swamps; Pierre Cauchon, an injured veteran and now parish constable who feels responsible for disfiguring Lufkin in a duel both tried to avoid; Darla Babineaux, a free black woman with secrets of her own, who Pierre comes to love, and Colonel Carleton Hayes, commander of the Red Legs, a madman who will become a central figure in the lives of all the other characters.

All of these characters are intriguing in their own way, but I became especially fond of Pierre and his dreams of a better life with Darla on some tropical island. I don't want to give away the ending, and I won't. You'll have to read it yourself to find out what happens to these wonderful creations of a master writer, perhaps one of the best modern American novelists.

There's violence in this book. There's also suspense, surprising twists, great insights into character and action, and some of the most luscious prose you'll encounter in a novel. Burke isn't afraid of adjectives and he uses them as skillfully as Faulkner. He's known to many primarily for his Robicheaux and Hackberry Holland crime novels, but his range goes much wider. If you haven't read him, you should.

[ visit James Lee Burke online ]