Product Description

In the summer of 1958, Dave Robicheaux and his half-brother Jimmie are just out of high school. Jimmie and Dave get work with an oil company, laying out rubber cables in the bays and mosquito-infested swamps all along the Louisiana-Texas coastline. But on the Fourth of July, change approaches in the form of Ida Durbin, a sweet-faced young woman with a lovely voice and a mandolin. Jimmie falls instantly in love with her. But Ida's not free to love - she's a prostitute, in hock to a brutal man called Kale. Jimmie agrees to meet Ida at the bus depot, ready for the road to Mexico. But Ida never shows. That was many years ago. Now, an older, well-worn Dave walks into Baptist Hospital to visit a man called Troy Bordelon, who wants to free himself of a dark secret before he dies. A bully and a sadist, he has a lot to confess to - but he chooses to talk about a young girl, a prostitute who he glimpsed briefly as a kid, bloodied and beaten, tied to a chair in his uncle's house...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16765 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

MAIL ON SUNDAY (10/9/06)
'The characters and atmosphere are, as ever, first rate'

Review
'The characters and atmosphere are, as ever, first rate' (MAIL ON SUNDAY (10/9/06) )

Myles McWeeney, IRISH INDEPENDENT
'Nobody evokes the steamy bayous that surround New Orleans and the seedy low-life that dwells there more eloquently than James Lee Burke, one of America's most elegaic writers in any genre.'

Customer Reviews

Back at his best
James Lee Burke's Robicheaux series represents some of the finest detective fiction ever written. His novels weave together the past and the present, social comment and gritty plotlines, and flawed characters at society's margins to create a vivid picture of Louisiana and New Orleans.

All this is done in a very distinctive and lyrical style, not only unique amongst crime writers but which evokes a dark brooding atmosphere, while making some acute observations which will leave their mark.

This book represents a return to top form. There have been a couple of recent books which have been a little formulaic, but here, although the form is familiar, Lee Burke has managed to breathe new life into it. The pace here is quicker, the style familiar but altogether tighter.

The plot theme, the past creating trouble in the present, is typical JLB, and allows him room to integrate his pet themes of social justice and the environment, which he has seldom done with more power.

If you are interested in reading the best(detective)fiction that the USA has to offer then I recommend this book - if you read it the odds are that you will want to read the earlier books. You will not regret it.

Crusaders Cross
Only the present exists, so the philosophers tell us, but for Dave Robicheaux the past is not mysterious, rather it lives with him. This new novel finds Dave initially retired but dwelling on a occurrence many years before when he and his brother were still young when a girl vocalist who helps them survive a brush with drowning disappears. Gentle probing of the past produces an immediate response from two nasty police officers. Their tactics launch Dave back into police work as a Sheriff's Deputy for the newly promoted Helen Soileau. This is one cool relationship that somehow never takes off as it should, one gets the feeling that James Lee Burke is just not sure where this could go. Investigations lead Dave to the Chalon family, a strange brew that has a long history back to the crusades. An interesting triangular tension is set up between the sultry Honoria , Valentine,her journalist brother and Dave. The tectonic plates beneath this triangular structure move viscously and without warning. The entire tale is set against the backdrop of a serial killer working the Baton Rouge parish. Addicts will be pleased that Cletus Purcell still works on the borderlines between law and anarchy, he brings a pleasing complexion to a novel that is particularly dark. Dave's struggle with his demons is put to the test and for a chapter or two one is left on a knife-edge about his success with these demons. During Dave's investigations he meets Molly, lay worker who is known in the community as a nun. Both of these are, in their own way, outcasts and a gravity of attraction pulls them together with, for me at least, surprising results. The novel is as usual well crafted although since Jolie Blon's Bounce I've felt a slight unease, maybe reflecting that of the author. A brilliant experience to read for a glimpse into some dark corners of the soul.

Dave Sticks Out His Elbows to Make Room for Hope
One of the beauties of James Lee Burke's remarkable series about Dave Robicheaux is that we come to live inside Dave's world of turbulent emotions, violent people, dangerous situations and perplexing crimes as though his world is our world. Few authors today can succeed in taking you out of your own life as well as James Lee Burke does, and Crusader's Cross is one of his most successful novels from this perspective.

After a series has gone on for quite a few books, many novelists find themselves stuck for where to take their hero or heroine next. In Crusader's Cross, James Lee Burke essentially restarts Dave as a character by changing his relationships in an unexpected way. If you've liked any of the books in the series, this one is bound to be one of your favorites.

A lot of loving care went into the writing. Sentences are sparse and bare where that evokes the right emotion and other sentences sparkle with bits and pieces of setting and emotion in other cases. Here's a description of a gunshot victim as he realizes he's been shot: "His mouth hung open, his stomach went soft and trembled like a bowl of Jell-O, his eyes fluttered and rolled as he went into shock." Talk about effective writing! You can feel it in your own body.

The story may seem to ramble, but that's the way Dave thinks. It's all part of the story telling . . . which is to help you be Dave.

When Dave and his half-brother Jimmie were just out of school, they found themselves menaced by sharks off the beach in Galveston. Just when they wondered if they would survive, they found themselves saved by a plucky, pretty girl, Ida Durbin. Between her lovely self and her beautiful voice, Jimmie cannot get enough of her. His passion leads to an unexpected fork in the road for their lives and those of many other people.

When Dave asks a few casual questions about Ida Durbin years later, he brings down a whole lot of wrath on his head. If you are like me, you'll find the story's developments to be both surprising and fascinating from there.

If those complications aren't enough, Dave finds himself back as a sworn officer of the law investigating a serial murderer . . . who seems to be taunting the local police about something or other.

What happens to us when we get too much pressure? The results are often not very pretty.

My only complaint about the story is that there is a little too much misleading information placed in various parts, which makes it all but impossible to figure out what's really going on. But it certainly will make you feel sympathetic to Dave as he flounders. I did like the way that the plot has so many unexpected twists and turns. I raced to the end and I'm sure you will too.