Product Description

Clutching the shards, of his shattered life, Cajun detective Dave Robicheaux has rejoined the New lberia police force.

His partner is dead -- slain during a condemned prisoner's bloodyflight to freedom that left Robicheaux critically wounded...and reawakened the ghost of his haunted, violent past.

Now he's trailing a killer into the sordid head of die Big Easy-caught up in the lethal undercurrents of a mob double-cross...confronting his most dangerous enemy: himself

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #23213 in Books
• Published on: 1991-08-01
• Released on: 1991-08-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 384 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780380713608
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
In a muddy, weed-filled coulee, Louisiana detective Dave Robicheaux begs an escaped convict for his life and is left more troubled by his lack of courage than by his gunshot wounds. Burke ( Half of Paradise ) proceeds to balance the resulting self-doubts of his tough, sympathetic hero with a complex, credible plot in his latest Cajun mystery. Robicheaux, a widower, leaves his small town for New Orleans, where he used to be a cop, to run a sting operation for the DEA. He engineers drug buys aimed at incriminating the local drug lord, an ex-Marine with nightmares and a habit from Vietnam, while trying to ferret out Jimmie Lee Boggs, the killer responsible for the coulee incident. Vivid supporting characters include Robicheaux's former NOPD partner Clete Purcel; an old true love now the widow of a Mafia figure; Gros Mama Goula, a juju woman; and Tony Cardo, the jumpy dealer whose inner struggles reflect Robicheaux's. Attentive to language and atmosphere, Burke delivers action on churning Gulf waters, in city streets, in deserted fields and within the souls of his memorable characters--and a fully satisfying resolution.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
"A nifty, gritty thriller that takes a double dip into crime New Orleans style" -- -- Boston Sunday Herald

About the Author
James Lee Burke is the author of nineteen novels, including eleven starring the Detective Dave Robicheaux. Burke grew up on the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast, where he now lives with his wife, Pearl, and spends several months of the year in Montana.

Customer Reviews

BURKE DOES IT AGAIN...
In this installment of the Dave Robicheaux series, James Lee Burke again paints a rich tapastry of the failings and triumphs of the human spirit set against the backdrop of southern Louisiana. As is true in his other novels, Burke uses his standard plot woven around career criminals, the disenfranchised,and the poor with a violent psychopath or two thrown in for good measure, to explore the complexity of human relationships and how and why past experiences can motivate us, even subconsicously, to behave in certain ways. All of Burke's characters are fully formed, three dimensional people that I felt like I knew by the end of the book. There wasn't a card board cutout among them. No body is ever really quite as good, or bad, as they initially seem( well, except for Jimmie Lee Boggs). I have read his books out of chronological order, and I do think there has been some drop off in recent years. Maybe this is due to building too many stories around the same basic plot of gangsters, low lifes, and crazed hitmen, or maybe now that Dave is married to Bootsie and has been in the same job for several novels, there hasn't been any room for any major new plot twists. Hopefully, Burke can explore Robicheaux's relationship with his daughter Alafair more as she becomes a young adult.

Burke On Track
I had just about given up on James Lee Burke. After being stunned with the genius of "Neon Rain," I found most contemporary Dave Robicheaux novels rather gloomy and over-described affairs. Went back to "Black Cherry Blues" his Edgar-winning novel and was disappointed. Now, I feel I've read another gem. I am doubly pleased because from reading and seeing interviews, I think James Lee Burke is one of the most charming authors around.

"A Morning for Flamingos" begins with the death of Dave's partner while transporting two prisoners, Te Beau, a New Iberia boy to whom Dave has certain obligations, and the menacing Jamie Lee Boggs. Dave is left critically wounded and remembers little of the actual escape. The story leads to underworld figures, voodoo, and the sordid, steamy underside of New Orleans.

The pace and brooding menace never let up, and Burke allows no loose ends to annoy the reader. The characterizations are sharp, descriptive, and unforgettable. The solution is elegant and exciting. I liked Dave all over again.

Building a Better Burke
This is, without a doubt, one of the better of the Dave Robicheaux novels. As always, James Lee Burke writes with a lyrical grace that should awe the average reader. And this early novel was written before he started plagiarizing himself wholesale, stealing plots, characters and even entire paragraphs in order to flesh out his balletic swamp-songs.

A black mark on this otherwise fine novel is the odd decision to have Dave go undercover in the home of Mobster Tony Cardo, a razor-edged freak of a man living on the outlines of his own criminal organization. Personally, if I were a crook, I'd never accept an ex-cop into my home, but maybe that's just me - the fact is that tony does and that's how this rollicking book gets going.

It's not important that there's any more plot than that - in a Burkle novel, the setting is the most important element. As always, Burke paints pictures and only incidentally places characters and action within them, with the exception of Dave Robicheaux himself. I have always admired Dave - he is morally ambiguous and righteously angry, which causes him to behave in ways that are almost as freakish as Tony Cardo's ways. An example is dave's heroism at the climax of this novel - it's both awe-inspiring and breathtaking, but it's probably not what I wold have done in the same situation.

Burke is an amazing writer and a good story-teller. He's not a bad painter, either.