A review by borborygmus
Robicheaux by James Lee Burke

3.0

Now I am a James Lee Burke and Dave Robicheaux fan, starting to read the books in the late 80's when they first came out, and periodically ever since. I re-read The Neon Rain and the other three of the first four books in the last couple of years, really enjoying them again. These are books I recommend to anyone heading for New Orleans and its environs for the first time, in preparation for the trip. James Lee Burke is a master in his descriptions of time and place:

Henderson Swamp is part of the vast network of bayous and bays and rivers that constitute the Atchafalaya Basin, the flooded woods a golden green at sunset and so swollen with silence that you wonder if this piece of primordial creation was saved by a divine hand to remind us of what the earth was like when our ancestors grew feet and crawled out of the sea. The cypress trees were in early leaf, as delicate as green lace, ruffling in the breeze, the water high and black and undisturbed, chained with lily pads, the bream and goggle-eye perch rolling under the pads like pillows of air floating to the surface.

A bit florid, but not too florid.

He brings us into the mind of Robicheaux - he is somewhat tortured, definitely damaged, remarkably likeable and surprisingly erudite:

Sleep is a mercurial mistress. She caresses and absolves and gives light and rest to the soul in our darkest hours. Or she fills us with fear and doubt and disjointed images that seem dredged out of the Abyss.

So why only three stars? I think, like Dave, like Clete Purcell, I am weary. The plot of Robicheaux number twenty-something seems the same as so many others, which are often a bit thin. The villains are caricatures, maybe caricatures of themselves. The dialogue has a veneer of authenticity, but is actually over-subtle and incohesive. The considerable expressive writing skills which Burke can harness, and with which he can enswathe the story and the characters and the conversations, are just not enough to compensate any more.

I think I'll give it another five years or so and then re-read Black Cherry Blues, or In the Electric Mist With Confederate Dead - or maybe I'll re-read them next time I'm on a plane to New Orleans.