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Title: Purple Cane Road by James Lee Burke ISBN: 0-440-22404-7 Publisher: Dell Pub. Date: 08 May, 2001 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.52 (82 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Purple Cane Road weaves a passionate tale.
Comment: Webmaster & I always eagerly grab Author Burke's latest off the library shelf & hurry home to return to Dave Robichaux's world of swamps & sunsets, boogie players & lowlifes, an ordinary man with an extraordinary sense of honor & compassion with a recovering wife he adores, a teenage daughter on the verge of rebellion & a home & fishing business his father built with his bare hands.
Dave Robicheaux is a Vietnam Veteran & a New Iberia Parish police detective who has only recently dragged himself out of the bottle. When he gets a call to check out an isolated house he finds his long time friend Clete Purcel throwing lowlifes off the roof into an ancient oak tree. While Dave attempts to sort out the fracas, Zipper Clum, a well-known pimp, squints at him & utters a horrifying statement that sends Dave into a swamp of pain & into the past of New Orleans law enforcement, a hive of corruption no one wants to disturb.
A James Lee Burke book is always a maze of stories where past & present melt into each other & where the Louisiana land is as much a player in the story as are the people. The bayous come alive with colors, sounds, scents & seasons.
Fascinating reading - as are all Burke's books.
Rating: 4
Summary: You'll want to hop in your car and travel these roads
Comment: I've read every Dave Robicheaux book written by James Lee Burke, and find that when I read one, I get out the road atlas and take a look at his Lousiana -- Burke's sense of place is so perfect, I need to put a finger on the map to deliver me closer to his bayous and cities.
A deeper and more introspective Robicheaux works his way through the secrets of his past, as they explode into the present, intermingling in the lives of those near and dear to him, both dead and alive.
Time is of vital importance in this book; the calender counts down the remaining days of a woman who may or may not deserve to be put to death for murder. Time past provides access to truths about Robicheaux's parents, a notorious local murder, even Vietnam and its effects on Robicheaux and others today.
Burke always juggles an assortment of colorful characters and seemingly unrelated plots. Regular readers know that there will be much murder and bloodshed before the conclusion that draws it all together.
One small beef, and why I will buck the crowds and give this book 4 stars instead of 5: Robicheaux and his buddy Clete Purcel are macho beyond compare, and that's fine - Burke writes great big manly books, full of action and energy; I always enjoy them.
But I think that his female characters, especially in this book, are getting sketchier and less fully drawn. Boots appears as almost an afterthought here, more as a sexual aside or a possession than a fully formed wife and partner (as she has been in books past).
Alf's behavior, in particular, seems vapid and not true to her knowledge of Dave's job, his character, and the violence in both their pasts.
Most of the Burke's male characters have history and are fully fleshed. Women play vital roles in this book, and we know very little about what makes some of the most important ones tick. That bothered me; I found myself, at the end of the book, feeling like I didn't know enough about some of these ladies to understand their actions, and thinking that maybe it could have been a better book with just a little more attention paid to the gals this time.
Rating: 2
Summary: Not competitive with the best
Comment: I don't know where all the laudatory reviews are coming from. This book isn't particularly well written. Burke's writing is unmemorable, his similes and descriptions frequently lame.
The book isn't particularly well plotted. The plot is fairly complex, but implausible. The protagonist, Dave Robicheaux, is a homicide cop in a Louisiana parish outside New Orleans. He does much of his work in the company of a thug private investigator named Clete. Clete is just a transparent device invented by Burke to allow Robicheaux to engage in flagrantly illegal activities and violations of the rights of private citizens. It is obvious that this situation wouldn't be tolerated by any law enforcement agency, regardless how corrupt or how good-ol-boy Southern. Louisiana may have more than its share of a history of political corruption, but the percentage of outright crooks in both the police departments and the elected officials in this book defies credulity. It is similarly implausible that an ordinary cop from outside New Orleans would be such good buddies with the governor and that his wife would be an old friend of the Attorney General.
The book isn't particularly well characterized. Robicheaux is a recovering alcoholic (a remarkably imaginative and original touch, isn't it?). Very few of the characters come to life. One who does is Robicheaux's buddy Clete - but it's not hard to create a character who's nothing but a bully and a thug. The other is Johnny Remeta, a hired hit man with an unusual combination of psychoses.
Considering how many other writers of hard-boiled detective novels there are out there, I see no reason to read Burke. Read this, and then read anything by Dennis Lehane (for example), and the difference is dramatic.
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Title: Burning Angel by James Lee Burke ISBN: 0786889047 Publisher: Hyperion Pub. Date: 01 August, 1996 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Sunset Limited by James Lee Burke ISBN: 0440223989 Publisher: Island Books Pub. Date: 06 July, 1999 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
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Title: Cadillac Jukebox by James Lee Burke ISBN: 0786889187 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 01 August, 1997 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Jolie Blon's Bounce by James Lee Burke, James Burke ISBN: 0743411447 Publisher: Pocket Star Pub. Date: 01 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: A Stained White Radiance by James L. Burke ISBN: 0380720477 Publisher: Avon Pub. Date: 01 May, 1993 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
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