House of the Rising Sun, which takes place in 1918.) His 14-year-old daughter Bessie looks after her father as best she can. Her “caretaking” includes severely injuring a local man who threatened her father. When Bessie and her teacher are brutally assaulted in retaliation, she decides discretion is the better part of valor and goes to New York City, where her older brother now lives.

Bessie’s experiences in New York parallel those a few months earlier in Texas. She makes friends with some neighborhood boys named Bennie Siegel (whose grown-up nickname will be “Bugsy”), Meyer Lansky, and Frankie Carbo. In later life, these three will become well-known mobsters. She also makes friends with a fictional mobster named Tony Vale, who then turns on her in a vicious attack. This assault leads to Bessie shooting and killing Vale. Again, discretion prevails, and Bessie returns to Texas.

The last third of Little Bessie is more hurried than the earlier sections. Back in Texas, Bessie winds up managing the family ranch. “Management” is a loose term here, since oil is discovered on the property, and Bessie negotiates a lucrative lease, all before she reaches the age of 18. (Texans in that era weren’t big on legalities like the age of majority.) Bessie narrates the first two sections of “Little Bessie” at a leisurely pace, allowing the author to use some marvelously colorful descriptions. For example, Bessie once noted, ”Papa had a greater enemy now than just the passage of time. He would walk out on the porch after sunset and see the irrevocable change taking place in the countryside. There was a stench in the air like rotten eggs, a monotonous clanking of oil derricks, and a sky dark with soot, the fields lit with thousands of tiny tin flames that resembled rose petals.” (The book is supposedly narrated by a well-educated adult Bessie decades after these events took place.)

Although the concluding section of Little Bessie contains some similar passages, it feels at times like a Cliff Notes version of what happened to Bessie in the post-1914 years. Several important, dramatic events occur, any of which could easily have been expanded for dramatic effect. However, the author rushes through them, depriving readers of the full emotional impact of those events. Fortunately, the author takes the time in the last couple of chapters to describe the final confrontation between Bessie and the book’s primary villain, an oil company goon named Indian Charlie (so called not because of Native American heritage, but because of the many men he had killed when he was younger). That confrontation provides a fitting climax for the book.

Little Bessie comes with several important caveats for readers. Bessie is surprisingly aware of the implications of the Jim Crow laws in effect in Texas at the time. She provides several harsh examples. The book also contains several racial slurs that were common, including the occasional use of the n-word. (Bessie avoids using that word and other slurs, but other characters in the book sometimes do so.) The novel also contains considerable violence, some of it quite graphic. Most troublingly, Little Bessie features supernatural elements that some readers may not appreciate.

The most important secondary character in the book is someone who is probably a spirit or haint named Mr. Slick. (I had never heard the word “haint” before seeing the movie Sinners a few months earlier, but the author uses it here.) Bessie is somewhat vague in her description of Mr. Slick. He appears and disappears mysteriously throughout the story and is described as having hooves and hairy feet. Sometimes, Mr. Slick serves as Bessie’s guardian angel, and sometimes he’s a sounding board for her conscience. He interacts with other characters occasionally. (When the book begins, he has a job with the oil company.) At other times, only Bessie can see him. I found Mr. Slick to be an unnecessary diversion who often detracted from an interesting plot. I also didn’t appreciate that the description of his characteristics and abilities seemed to change from chapter to chapter to suit the story’s needs. Mr. Slick may be a matter of personal taste for readers, but I think Little Bessie would have been a better novel without him.  

Don’t Forget Me, Little Bessie is an entertaining addition to the Holland family saga. James Lee Burke again shows his skill with language and his ability to create memorable characters. Bessie Holland favorably invites comparison with Mattie Ross from Charles Portis’s True Grit. Bessie stands toe-to-toe with some ugly characters while demonstrating strong moral fiber. The secondary characters in the book are also well-developed, even in only a couple of scenes. I regret including Mr. Slick and the unnecessary verbiage devoted to his storyline. The author could have used that text more effectively, expanding some of the rushed scenes from the last part of the book. Little Bessie has some flaws and doesn’t rank with the very best Burke works (which are among the best literature you’ll find), but it still gives readers a revealing look at an eventful time in Texas and American history.

NOTE: The publisher graciously provided me with a copy of this book. However, the decision to review the book and the contents of this review are entirely my own.