A Private Cathedral (Dave Robicheaux #23)

James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux books have always seemed darker and more violent to me than most of the other popular detective series of the day. Considering what Dave Robicheaux and his blood brother Clete Purcel have endured over the first twenty-two books of the series, they are lucky to still be standing, much less breathing. I have been reading the Robicheaux books as each of them is published all the way back to the third book in the series, Black Cherry Blues, so I thought I knew pretty much what to expect from A Private Cathedral when it comes to violence, mysticism, visions, and the like. Boy, was I wrong, because A Private Cathedral reaches a whole new level of darkness and evil brutality.

As the novel opens, Dave Robicheaux is a lonely man living with several cats and Tripod, his pet raccoon. The twice-married Robicheaux has by now been twice-widowed, and he is still grieving the loss of both women. Alafair, his daughter, is in school a long way from New Iberia, Louisiana, and Robicheaux misses her terribly, too. He’s lost his badge, and is waiting on investigators to decide if deserves to get it back (not that that much slows a man like Dave Robicheaux down). And now, things are going to get much, much worse for the “Bobbsey Twins,” Dave Robicheaux and Cletus Purcel. 

There are two major crime families in the New Iberia area, the Shondells and the Balangies, and they hate each other’s guts. However, in order to avoid a bloodbath, it’s important that the two families figure out a way to keep the balance of power from being tipped too heavily in favor of one or the other of them. When Isolde Balangie, the teen-aged step-daughter of the Balangie kingpin, tells Dave one day that she is being delivered to Mark Shondell, head of the Shondell family, he understands that some kind of deal has been struck between the two families. But it all smells too much like human-trafficking for Dave to ignore what he’s been told and what he already knows about Mark Shondell.

In a Romeo and Juliet kind of twist, Isolde Balangie soon disappears along with Mark Shondell’s nephew Johnny. Dave knows that can’t be part of the families’ masterplan, so he wants to find them before anyone else does. Not only won’t that be easy, it will result in Dave and Clete having to run and hide from what appears to be a time-traveling hitman from the bowels of hell, a “man” who travels on a ghost ship, can induce traumatizing hallucinations, and strike directly at the weak spots of his prey. Oh…and he doesn’t have a nose, does have beady little eyes, and from the color of his skin may just be more reptile than human. 

So, yes, A Private Cathedral requires a huge leap of suspended disbelief by the reader if it is to be taken seriously. But I don’t read Dave Robicheaux novels just for the plot; I read them to get inside Dave’s head - and sometimes inside Clete’s - in order to understand better what makes him tick. They are both “White Knights” despite their personal habits and their willingness to bend the law however much it takes to make sure that the good guys win in the end. They are both alcoholics, but only Dave seems to ever be on the wagon. They are both scarred by their mutual experiences in Vietnam. They are both Cajuns who believe in spirits, ghosts, and visions in a way that others will never understand. And, somehow, they are now two old men covered in battle scars from the past who have survived way longer than either ever expected to survive.

They are both rather brilliant, introspective men, although Clete hides it better than Dave. Dave describes Clete as “a closet bibliophile” who has “stored hundreds of paperback books he bought in secondhand stores and yard sales, most of them about American history and the War Between the States.” He reads and re-reads them. Dave, on the other hand, often speaks like a man with both a classical education and an education in the classics. He can’t hide his true character the way that Clete hides his own.

What worries me a little about A Private Cathedral is what seems to be a personal message from Dave to his admiring audience of readers. On the novel’s last page, Dave says:

“I didn’t want to hear any more of the story. I had already put aside the unhappiness of the past and no longer wanted to probe the shadows of the heart or the evil that men do. It was time to lay down my sword and shield and study war no more.”

It remains to be seen whether or not Dave is talking only about the Balangies and the Shondells or not. After all, James Lee Burke is 83 years old now, and one day we will have read the final chapter in the story of the Bobbsey Twins. And, honestly, Dave and Clete haven’t been acting their ages for a long time - Vietnam veterans must all be at least 70 years old now, and our heroes have hardly lost a step - but then again, neither has Burke. They are all still indestructible in the long run.

James Lee Burke

Light of the World

Dave Robicheaux and Clete Purcell – and those closest to them – have certainly earned a little downtime.  Barely having survived the gunfight that ended The Glass Rainbow, Dave and Clete were soon battling pure evilness again in the nineteenth book in the Dave Robicheaux series, Creole Belle.  Now, as Light of the World opens Dave and Clete, along with Dave’s wife Molly and daughter Alafair, are recovering on a friend’s ranch in a remote part of Montana. 

Life is good  – at least until Alafair is almost killed by an arrow while running on one of the ranches wooded trails.  Dave, not a man who believes in coincidences, immediately starts nosing around (much to the chagrin of the local sheriff) and is soon reminded that the forces of evil never take a day off.  The fight is on.  And then Clete’s daughter (introduced in Creole Belle) shows up and throws a little gasoline on the already simmering fire.

Dave and Clete, personally flawed as they are, pride themselves on representing good in the perpetual battle between good and evil.  They defend those who are incapable of defending themselves – and, because they are willing to get their own hands dirty to get the job done, they do it very well.  And when it comes to protecting their daughters, all bets are off, especially when facing someone like Asa Surette, a ghostlike psychopath who has been nursing a grudge against Alafair for years and finally is in the position to make her pay.

Alafair, however, is more than ready to defend herself, and takes a surprisingly active hand in confronting the man whose attention she feels so guilty about bringing into their lives.  Readers will decide for themselves (I found her new warrior-like persona to be a little jarring) whether the new Alafair is, perhaps, a bit of a misstep on the author’s part. 

James Lee Burke

Now twenty books long and twenty-six years old, the Dave Robicheaux series is as strong as ever.  Dave Robicheaux and Cletus Purcell have become as familiar to avid fans as members of their own families.  The men, especially Clete, may not be perfect but it is their flaws that make them so effective in fighting the human predators so common in their world.  They are willing to give as good as they get, and we love them for it.

Bottom Line:  Light of the World is a great addition to the Dave Robicheaux series and fans will want to grab it.  James Lee Burke is as good as ever – maybe even better.  Gretchen Horowitz, Clete’s recently discovered adult daughter, is great fun and one hopes that she will be around for a long time.

(Review Copy provided by Publisher)

Creole Belle

James Lee Burke does something better than any crime fiction writer around today: he creates believable, self-contained worlds in which the outlandish things that happen to his good guys seem entirely plausible.  And, boy do crazy things happen to Dave Robicheaux, Clete Purcell, and those closest to them.  But in Burke's little corners of southwest Louisiana and remote Montana, it all makes a certain kind of sense.

As Creole Belle begins, Dave is still hospitalized, slowly recovering from the near-death experience he and Clete experienced at the end of the previous series novel, The Glass Rainbow.  In the hospital, Dave, who is often surrounded by visitors from his past (be they long dead or not), is surprised by a visit - and the gift of an iPod with some special songs on it - from Tee Jolie Melton, a young woman he knows.  There are just two problems: Tee Jolie disappeared several weeks earlier, not to be seen since, and no one can hear the special iPod songs but Dave.

Even when he finally leaves the hospital, Dave continues to get phone calls from Tee Jolie in the middle of the night.  Sensing that something is terribly wrong, he and Clete start asking questions.  When Tee Jolie's sister is found encased in a huge block of ice floating in the warmish waters of the Gulf of Mexico, it all suddenly becomes too real.  Someone badly wants Dave and Clete to back off and will do anything it takes to kill their investigation - and them.

James Lee Burke

James Lee Burke, at age 76, is still very much in peak writing form.  His Robicheaux novels, in particular, are as good as ever, and Burke has even added an intriguing new character to the mix here who will be one of the key characters in his soon to be released Light of the World.  In Burke's view, the fight between good and evil is not a black and white one.  He focuses, instead, on all the gray areas where the bad guys sometimes show a tiny sliver of a heart and the good guys are forced to use bad-guy tactics in the name of justice.  Dave Robicheaux and Clete Purcell pride themselves on protecting those incapable of protecting themselves - and if the system cannot do it, they do whatever it takes to get the job done.

Bottom Line: Read this book.  Read this series.  Read James Lee Burke.

Heaven's Prisoners

Coming into 2013, one of my goals was to re-read James Lee Burke’s entire Dave Robicheaux series, capping off the year by reading Creole Belle (2012) for the first time.  That’s 19 books in all and I’m already way behind, so it probably will not happen exactly that way.  But I have just finished Heaven’s Prisoners, the second book in the series, one I consider to be a key book in the set.

Dave is long gone from the New Orleans Police Department now (although he can’t seem to stay out of that city), and has returned to New Iberia, his hometown.  He is newly married to his second wife and the two are running their own bait and tackle shop there.  It is a perfect life for Dave, something he was born to and does well – if his past, and his white knight self-image, will just allow him to get on with it.

Dave can’t win, though.  One day, while he is fishing on the Louisiana Gulf with Annie, they watch a small, two-engine plane crash into nearby waters.  The plane passes so close to the boat before slamming hard into the water that Dave has a clear view of the terrified faces looking out the plane’s windows.  Strapping on a pair of near-empty air tanks, Dave hits the water in hopes of rescuing some of the passengers.  And, largely thanks to the heroic efforts of a little girl’s mother, Dave manages to get the child out of the plane in time to save her life.  No one else survives.

James Lee Burke

Dave saw some things in the sunken plane he should not, for his own good, have seen.  After one of the bodies in the plane is left unaccounted for in the official account of the accident, Dave starts asking questions.  Some very powerful people want him to shut up – and Dave knows that he should.  But Dave, being Dave, can’t do that.  He wants the truth, and he is willing to risk everything he has (and loses much of it before this one is over) to find it.

Heaven’s Prisoners is an important Dave Robicheaux book because the little girl Dave rescues becomes Alafair Robicheaux, the only child Dave will ever have, and 17 books later she is still one of the most important people in his world – and in the series.  It is not easy growing up Dave Robicheaux’s kid, but the little Central American girl who almost died entering the country illegally will thrive and become a fan favorite over the years.

Next up in the series is Book Three, Black Cherry Blues.  

The Neon Rain

The Neon Rain, James Lee Burke’s introduction of Cajun cop Dave Robicheaux to crime fiction readers is even better than I remembered it to be.  It has been more than twenty years since I first read this first one, but Dave Robicheaux books have been a regular part of my reading life ever since that first exposure to Dave’s world.  There are now nineteen books in the series (I hope Burke is hard at work on number twenty), and I have read all but the latest of them almost as soon as they were published.  I was immediately and permanently hooked, and now I remember why.

The plot of The Neon Rain is rather straightforward: a New Orleans detective learns from a death row inmate that someone has placed a contract on his life and starts nosing around to see if there is anything to the rumor.  In the process of trying to pin names and motives to the potential hit, our detective inadvertently makes some powerful people – on both sides of the law – very nervous.  Lt. Robicheaux, it seems, has almost as many enemies within the New Orleans P.D. as he does outside it.  He also has a huge drinking problem and a strong commitment to making the bad guys pay for their crimes, both of which are about to make his life hell.

The real strength of the Dave Robicheaux series is Burke’s talent for creating characters his readers want to know more about.  They are not always likeable, but they are always interesting.  Even some of the characters we do like, especially Robicheaux and his longtime partner Clete Purcell, are flawed almost beyond redemption.  But amidst all the chaos and ugliness, Dave Robicheaux creates a family, stays in love with his wife, raises the little girl he plucked from the bottom of a lake, and tries to keep his best friend from self-destructing.  Oh, and along the way, he solves a lot of brutal murders, puts a bunch of bad guys away (sometimes without witnesses), and looks out for a whole lot of people who are not capable of doing it for themselves.  If ever Southwestern Louisiana had a white knight, his name was Dave Robicheaux.

The Neon Rain tells us that Dave is a Vietnam veteran still plagued with bad dreams and other symptoms of PTSS, that he has a fifteen-month younger half-brother who makes his living just over the edge of what is legal, that he went to college in Lafayette (home of the Raging Cajuns), that he is always one drink away from his next bender, and that his wife left him for a Houston oilman.  But this imperfect life is only the point that readers climb on to Dave’s story, an introduction to a character whose life will be a series of extraordinary peaks and valleys for another twenty books are so.  And, as Dave closes the book on his career with the New Orleans cops, we are going to be lucky enough to go along for the ride.