Purple cane road

Throughout Burke's long-running and widely acclaimed Dave Robicheaux series, the melancholy hero has defended the virtues of his vanishing Cajun way of life against the neon seductions of the modern urban world. Lately, though, Burke has played a fascinating variation on this theme. In the previous Robicheaux novel, Sunset Limited (1998), and now in this latest installment, the past itself has become suspect. There is great sadness in Robicheaux's personal history--the breakup of his parents' marriage, the death of his father in an oil-rig accident, the disappearance of his mother--but one of Dave's anchors in the stormy seas of his life has always been his abiding respect for his parents' fierce independence and unflinching integrity. Now a New Orleans lowlife has let it slip that Robicheaux's mother was a whore in her last days, before being killed by gangsters: "My mother's memory, the sad respect I always had for her, had been stolen from me." As Robicheaux attempts to reconstruct his mother's life and disprove the lowlife's allegations, the trail leads, as it nearly always does in a Burke novel, to powerful politicians with bent psyches and secret lives. This time, though, the stakes are higher, and Robicheaux's rage threatens to bring more grief down upon his loved ones. Even Dave's sidekick, Clete Purcell, never known for his caution, counsels restraint: "What you want is God's permission to paint the trees with bad guys. That ain't going to happen, big mon." Perhaps more so than any of his peers, Burke has kept his series alive by skillfully tweaking his formula just enough to add interest but never so much as to lose its essence. Robicheaux battling the past instead of the present is only the latest example of Burke's continuing ability to mix the fresh with the familiar in just the right way. --Bill Ott

HAfter the relatively lightweight Sunset Limited (1998), Cajun cop Dave Robicheaux returns in a powerhouse of a thriller that shows Burke writing near the peak of his form. Robicheaux faces his most personal case yet, when a pimp puts him on the trail of the truth behind his mother's long-ago disappearance. Meanwhile, he uncovers new evidence in the case of death-row inmate Letty Labiche, who took a mattock to the man who molested her as a child, state executioner Vachel Carmouche. Burke parades the usual cast of grotesques: feckless Louisiana governor Belmont Pugh; cold-blooded attorney general Connie Deshotel; sleazy police liaison officer Jim Gable, who "keeps the head of a Vietnamese soldier in a jar of chemicals"; and psychopathic hit man Johnny Remata, who acts as all-around avenging angel. Wife Bootsie's having had a fling with Gable drives Robicheaux into a jealous fury more than once, while daughter Alafair's flirtation with Johnny raises the temperature even higher. Old buddy Clete Purcell doesn't have a lot to do, other than to contribute to the general mayhem. Once Robicheaux learns that his mother fell afoul of a couple of New Orleans cops in the pay of the Giacano crime family, it's a simple matter of identifying the guilty pair and bringing them to justiceDor is it? Burke winds up an often convoluted and gratuitously violent plot with a dynamite ending that will leave readers feeling truly satisfied, if a bit shell-shocked. Major ad/promo; author tour. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Burke weaves a poetic impression of the bayou scenery of south Louisiana and peoples this paradise with as villainous a cast as one could find in any true-crime thriller. Dave Robicheaux, a recovering alcoholic working in the Sheriff's department of New Iberia Parish, in the course of a routine arrest is recognized by the criminal. Dave is a very human and flawed hero who is working to try to bring justice to a violent world and perhaps, at the same time, a little peace to his tortured soul. Read by Nick Sullivan, this is an action-packed book; its violence is often graphic, but the story is compelling. Sure to be a hit with Burke's many fans, this story, the 11th in the series, is a must for all public libraries. Theresa Connors, Arkansas Tech Univ., Russellville (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Another round of violence in New Iberia Parish leads sheriff's investigator Dave Robicheaux (Sunset Limited, 1998, etc.) to reopen the darkest mystery he's ever faced: the murder of his mother. The door into his past opens with startling suddenness. Letty Labiche has almost run through the legal obstacles keeping her from the death house for killing abusive ex-cop executioner Vachel Carmouche eight years ago when Dave learns that Little Face Dautrieve, a coke hooker from New Iberia, has been saving newspaper clippings on the case for her pimp, Zipper Clum. Braced by Dave and his friend Clete Purcel, a New Orleans shamus, Zipper blurts out the news that Mae Guillory, the mother who left Dave's father years before, had been drowned by a pair of cops back in 1967. The revelation acts like a starting gun for Dave--and for melancholy, hyperactive out-of-town trigger-man Johnny Remeta, whose killing of Zipper is only the first in a string of half a dozen new murders. Politely insisting that Dave's just like him, Remeta appoints himself Dave's guardian angel. Dave would love to see this sensitive killer dead before he ingratiates himself too deeply with Dave's teenaged daughter Alafair. But he needs every bit of Remeta's despised help, because his no-fists-barred attitude toward the cops will end by antagonizing every law officer in Louisiana, from New Orleans Vice cop Don Ritter and powerful City Hall insider Jim Gable, whom Zipper insisted had offered to let Little Face skate in return for regular sex for both of them, to state Attorney General Connie Deshotel, as Dave tears through the ranks looking for Mae's murderers. Though the links among felonies can be insultingly casual, and the mystery is no more mysterious than a ritual sacrifice, Burke's powerfully evoked world shows why the past, as Faulkner said, not only isn't dead; it isn't even past. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

/*Starred Review*/ Throughout Burke's long-running and widely acclaimed Dave Robicheaux series, the melancholy hero has defended the virtues of his vanishing Cajun way of life against the neon seductions of the modern urban world. Lately, though, Burke has played a fascinating variation on this theme. In the previous Robicheaux novel, Sunset Limited (1998), and now in this latest installment, the past itself has become suspect. There is great sadness in Robicheaux's personal history--the breakup of his parents' marriage, the death of his father in an oil-rig accident, the disappearance of his mother--but one of Dave's anchors in the stormy seas of his life has always been his abiding respect for his parents' fierce independence and unflinching integrity. Now a New Orleans lowlife has let it slip that Robicheaux's mother was a whore in her last days, before being killed by gangsters: "My mother's memory, the sad respect I always had for her, had been stolen from me." As Robicheaux attempts to reconstruct his mother's life and disprove the lowlife's allegations, the trail leads, as it nearly always does in a Burke novel, to powerful politicians with bent psyches and secret lives. This time, though, the stakes are higher, and Robicheaux's rage threatens to bring more grief down upon his loved ones. Even Dave's sidekick, Clete Purcell, never known for his caution, counsels restraint: "What you want is God's permission to paint the trees with bad guys. That ain't going to happen, big mon." Perhaps more so than any of his peers, Burke has kept his series alive by skillfully tweaking his formula just enough to add interest but never so much as to lose its essence. Robicheaux battling the past instead of the present is only the latest example of Burke's continuing ability to mix the fresh with the familiar in just the right way. ((Reviewed May 1, 2000))Copyright 2000 Booklist Reviews

Maintaining freshness in a lengthy series may be difficult, but Burke deftly handles this challenge with his 11th entry featuring Dave Robicheaux, police detective and ordinary hero. During a shakedown, a local pimp informs Dave that he has knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the death of Dave's mother only to wind up murdered himself soon after. Having spent most of his life with his mother's death shrouded in mystery, Dave finally has an opportunity to learn of her end. To accomplish this, however, he must unravel a conspiracy to conceal the events of that fateful night, one involving several New Orleans cops, a conniving state attorney general, and a genius psychopath. More importantly, he must deal with the internal darkness exposed during his search and ultimately with what it means to be his mother's son. Burke is in top form, his words reading like poetry, his vivid descriptions effortlessly transporting the reader to Southern Louisiana. A superb and satisfying work showcasing one of the truly great mystery writers of our generation. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 4/1/00.] Craig L. Shufelt, Gladwin Cty. Lib., MI Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

HAfter the relatively lightweight Sunset Limited (1998), Cajun cop Dave Robicheaux returns in a powerhouse of a thriller that shows Burke writing near the peak of his form. Robicheaux faces his most personal case yet, when a pimp puts him on the trail of the truth behind his mother's long-ago disappearance. Meanwhile, he uncovers new evidence in the case of death-row inmate Letty Labiche, who took a mattock to the man who molested her as a child, state executioner Vachel Carmouche. Burke parades the usual cast of grotesques: feckless Louisiana governor BelmontPugh; cold-blooded attorney general Connie Deshotel; sleazy police liaison officer Jim Gable, who "keeps the head of a Vietnamese soldier in a jar of chemicals"; and psychopathic hit man Johnny Remata, who acts as all-around avenging angel. Wife Bootsie's having had a fling with Gable drives Robicheaux into a jealous fury more than once, while daughter Alafair's flirtation with Johnny raises the temperature even higher. Old buddy Clete Purcell doesn't have a lot to do, other than to contribute tothe general mayhem. Once Robicheaux learns that his mother fell afoul of a couple of New Orleans cops in the pay of the Giacano crime family, it's a simple matter of identifying the guilty pair and bringing them to justice or is it? Burke winds up an often convoluted and gratuitously violent plot with a dynamite ending that will leave readers feeling truly satisfied, if a bit shell-shocked. Major ad/promo; author tour. (Aug.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.