![]() Robicheaux, a Sheriff of New Iberia, Louisiana, has a strong and deep sense of justice, and repeatedly champions the downtrodden, abused and abandoned, while meting out his own version of just desserts to the mean-spirited and predatory. Robiicheaux is a wonderfully complex character, genuinely and consistently conflicted between his visceral urges and more socially acceptable behaviors. I have never been disappointed by a James Lee Burke novel, and this, most recent in the Dave Robicheaux series, is no exception. Thanks to this story we are also provided with a fictional account of the people who struggled to survive in it's aftermath. The impact of Hurricane Katrina is still being felt and cannot be forgotten. It is a story of good and evil that is almost Biblical. All while the storm turns the Big Easy into a lawless wasteland of apocalyptic proportions. The hunt for the diamonds and other looter is on. There are missing "blood diamonds" and a sadistic psychopath. Was it self defense? Or murder? One of the victims of the looters is a mob boss. A group of looters hit a big score before two of them are shot. ![]() ![]() You can feel the rage and pain.Ī junkie priest in a last heroic act tries to save parishioners trapped in the attic of a church. After having read the first few books in the series I felt that only James Lee Burke could deliver a story centered around Katrina that was both evocative and heartfelt ( "bodies wrapped tight like mummies in the gray and brown detritus left by the receding waters.") He does not disappoint. I knew that this story dealt with Hurricane Katrina and it's impact when I first started reading the series. Even if you have never been to New Orleans or Southern Louisiana you will come to know it, to taste the foods, hear the music, see the sunrise on the bayou, or listen to the the rain on a tin roof. His characters are vivid and come alive and you become immersed in the story. James Lee Burke's prose is rich and lyrical. I have been reading all of the books in the Dave Robicheaux series since the beginning of the year. The book that has influenced his life the most is the 1929 family tragedy "The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner. Their daughter, Alafair Burke, is also a mystery novelist. Shortly before his move to Montana, he taught for several years in the Creative Writing program at Wichita State University in the 1980s.īurke and his wife, Pearl, split their time between Lolo, Montana, and New Iberia, Louisiana. He was Writer in Residence at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, succeeding his good friend and posthumous Pulitzer Prize winner John Kennedy Toole, and preceding Ernest Gaines in the position. He has worked at a wide variety of jobs over the years, including working in the oil industry, as a reporter, and as a social worker. He attended the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and the University of Missouri, receiving a BA and MA from the latter. He has twice received the Edgar Award for Best Novel, for Black Cherry Blues in 1990 and Cimarron Rose in 1998.īurke was born in Houston, Texas, but grew up on the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast. James Lee Burke is an American author best known for his mysteries, particularly the Dave Robicheaux series. This is not just a superb crime novel, it is potentially THE fictional chronicle of a disaster whose human dimensions America is still struggling to process. You can feel the undercurrents of rage and pain beneath the narrative, making this not only his most personal and deeply felt book for some time, but quite possibly his best novel to date. The nightmarish landscape created by Katrina seems the perfect setting for Burke's almost Biblical visions of good and evil - it is as if he had to wait for this disaster to find the occasion to match his emotionally supercharged prose. The story begins with the shooting of two would-be looters in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, and then follows a motley group of characters - from street thugs to a big-time mob boss, from a junkie priest to a sadistic psychopath - as their stories converge on a cache of stolen diamonds, while the storm turns the Big Easy into a lawless wasteland of apocalyptic proportions. ![]() This is James Lee Burke's latest mystery featuring Dave Robicheaux. ![]()
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