Product Description

Three men are present when Amanda Boudreau is raped and murdered, and small-time hustler Tee Bobby Hulin's prints are found at the crime scene. Dave Robicheaux reckons he's innocent, and Tee Bobby pleads so, then attempts suicide in his holding cell. Why? Tee Bobby is released on bail and soon after there is a second murder. When lawyer Perry LaSalle takes on the defence of Tee Bobby, Dave knows his motives are fuelled by guilt. For Tee Bobby's grandmother was seduced by Perry's grandfather, and Amanda Boudreau's death is related to events that happened long before Tee Bobby was born...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #43829 in Books
• Published on: 2003-05-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Like James Lee Burke's other Dave Robichaux novels, Jolie Blon's Bounce has at its core a sense of people as driven by demons; both their own demons--Robichaux's controlled alcoholism and the dark rages that lie behind it--and the demons handed down to them by history. Robichaux knows that gifted young black musician Tee Bobby Hulin was present at the rape and murder of a young white woman--he is also certain that Hulin was neither rapist nor murderer. Equally, though he has no grounds for certainty about it, he has a sense that the killing of the sister of a local mobster has nothing to do with the case and that the interest of an eccentric young bible salesman in the tough woman DA Shanahan and the woman private eye Zerelda is not harmless at all. Robichaux wants to play cases by the book--this gets harder when he is brutalised by a mad old racist and when his friends find themselves in jeopardy.

James Lee Burke has always been intelligent about the edge of things, and here he is taking his hero to the edge of police procedure and the edge of the real--some of this case skirts battles with principalities and powers. This is one of the nerviest and darkest of this extraordinary series and one of the most poetic--an odd word to use of a thriller, yet the right one. --Roz Kaveney

About the Author
James Lee Burke is the author of many previous novels, including twelve featuring Detective Dave Robicheaux. He lives with his wife, Pearl, in Missoula, Montana and New Iberia, Louisiana.

Customer Reviews

Another Robicheaux. Again.
I used to look forward to the next Dave Robicheaux book like I looked forward to Christmas when I was a child. I used to feel the same anticipation, the same thrill I would feel upon waking too early to go into the living room to see what Santa had brought. I would buy the new James Lee Burke novel and rush to get it home, sneaking looks at the dust jacket, reading the first few pages while waiting in line to get on the bus and finally arriving home to immerse myself. They were wonderful, yes, well-written and poetic, with a dark, malevolent beauty hiding beneath the rot and detritus of the swamps and rural backwaters, but they were more than that. They were like mini-trips to Louisiana for me, a place I love and visit whenever I can. And they were a new treat from a favorite author, something that was new to me, as many of the writers I discovered in my youth were long dead and would be producing no more books.

These days, a new Dave Robicheaux novel is like a phone call from a distant aunt. It's nice to hear from her, but she keeps telling the same old stories over and over again and you wind up preferring that maybe the calls were less frequent, or of shorter duration. "Jolie Blon's Bounce" is like that. It's still Burke and it's still welcome, but you've heard all the stories, read all the lovely descriptions, wondered about the vaguely supernatural elements, thrilled at Dave's headstrong determination to do exactly the most self-destructive thing at any given moment, despite what his family, friends and colleagues tell him. There's nothing new.

The story is about a poor black person accused of a crime and the rich white people who have a dark secret and may actually be the criminals. No, wait. That's ALL of them. Let's try it again...

"Jolie Blon's Bounce" finds Dave investigating the murders of a young, white, teenaged girl and of a prostitute, the daughter of a New Orleans gangster. Everyone figures local hophead and musician Tee Bobby Hulin as the murderer; everyone except Dave, who wants so much to believe in the boy's innocence that he follows a few unorthodox leads.

Along the way he encounters Legion Guidry, a former plantation manager who may or may not be the demon Legion from the Bible, a man who violates and twists his way through New Iberia like a thread of mold. He threatens, bullies, beats and kills any number of people before turning his charms on Dave himself, who nearly does not come away from the encounter intact.

Throw in Clete Purcell, Dave's old partner, the Private Investigator daughter of another mobster, a malevolent Bible salesman, the prostitute's grieving father, the local police, and Dave's curiously bitchy family and you have a nice, murky roux, full of red herrings, macguffins and dead ends.

As usual, Dave sews it all up in his unique, ethically challenged way. But what has begun to strike me about these books is how surly and dislikeable is the lead character. Dave barely communicates his thoughts to anyone, is rude and disrespectful to people he doesn't like and is merely grumpy and hostile to people he loves. He pontificates to those close to him, all the while dipping his toe in the same toxic water from which he warns them. With each new book I wonder why his wife Bootsie hasn't filed for divorce - they only seem to have sex when she's mad at Dave and they don't talk or show affection any other time. Dave's daughter, Alafair, once a cool character, has grown into a charmless teenager who finds every reason to pick a fight and no reason to show us, the reader, what a great guy Dave is under the surface. If you liked the other books in the series, you are bound to like this one, but be warned: the books are getting darker and I'm not sure even Dave can see the light anymore.

jolie blon's bounce
Summary ; another journey into the darker side of Louisiana with sheriff's deputy Dave Robicheaux.
James Lee Burke yet again manages to combine the tension between good and evil with another chapter in the life of Dave Robicheaux. Haunting images from his childhood are brought up to the present with his encounters with a strange and unpleasant individual called Legion. Dave's sexuality is also challenged in one of these, and the reader will understand his response to such provocation. Clete Purcell, who I do hope is one of your favourites, roller coasts through the story exposing his softer side in the process in more ways than one! One of the problems with a writer such as James Lee Burke is one always wants more. This paradox is slowly being resolved since one gets the hint that Dave is nearing retirement. If there is a new version of Jolie blon then it's worth listening to, just as much as reading the book of the same name.

Sometimes You Have to Look to the Past to Find the Truth
Sixteen-year-old Amanda Boudreau is raped and shot to death on a Saturday afternoon while she was out four-wheeling with her boy friend. A black man, who was minding his own business on his front porch, saw them drive by. He also saw a car with three passengers going in the same direction. One of them tossed a beer can out the window. Then he heard a gunshot. The police find the beer can and the prints on it point to Tee Bobby Hulin, a twenty-five-year old black hustler, a guy who habitually finds himself going down the wrong paths with the wrong people.

Tee Bobby looks good to the police, but Dave Robicheaux isn't convinced. Then Attorney Perry La Salle, heir to a long history of local land owners, infuriates the town of New Iberia by taking Tee Bobby's case. Robicheaux finds a historical link between the La Salles and Tee Bobby's family. In the past generation the only link the wealthy landowners and the local poor had were as overseer and poorly paid hired help in the fields. One overseer was a vicious monster called Legion, who was known to demand his way with the female workers. It was thought that Legion was dead, turns out he wasn't. Turns out he had a history with Robicheaux as well.

As for me, I enjoyed this book, although I can certainly understand why others might not want to dive right in and read their Sunday away. Though you can read it in a couple of sittings, perhaps this is the kind of story best read over a week or two, small doses at a time, so that you can think about the way Mr. Burke mixes his theme of good and evil up with his characters. Also there are quite a few people to get to know in this story, people I enjoyed meeting, people I thought about for a long time after I finished the book.