Product Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR JAMES LEE BURKE

THE NEON RAIN

Detective Dave Robicheaux has fought too many battles: in Vietnam, with killers and hustlers, with police brass, and with the bottle. Lost without his wife's love, Robicheaux's haunted soul mirrors the intensity and dusky mystery of New Orleans' French Quarter -- the place he calls home, and the place that nearly destroys him when he becomes involved in the case of a young prostitute whose body is found in a bayou. Thrust into the world of drug lords and arms smugglers, Robicheaux must face down a subterranean criminal world and come to terms with his own bruised heart in order to survive.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11395 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10-01
• Released on: 2002-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 275 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Burke's sixth novel pits New Orleans homicide detective Dave Robichaux against the mob, the contras, the Feds and just about all the other cops. The trouble starts when Robichaux insists on investigating the murder of a young prostitute and discovers that it isn't only the crooks who don't want the truth to come out: the police don't want it revealed, either. The underworld and the authorities combine to cobble up a frame against Robichaux, and suddenly he's on the run. Burke's maverick detective and his gritty, realistic dialogue and convoluted plotting are reminiscent of Elmore Leonardwhose latest novel, Bandits, has a contra angle, too. The matter of subterranean government policy running amok suits the world of suspense fiction well, serving it in the 1980s the way Cold War themes fed the genre in earlier decades. With its fine local color and driving action, this novel is both chilling and first-rate entertainment.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
New Orleans homicide cop Dave Robicheaux has a passion for fishing. While pursuing his hobby on a back country bayou, Robicheaux finds a body. His discovery pulls him into a network of small-time Mafiosi, Nicaraguan drug dealers, federal Treasury agents and retired two-star generalsall involved in a plot to ship arms to the Nicaraguan contras. More interesting than the unraveling of this plot is Robicheaux himselfCajun, recovering alcoholic, practicing Catholicand his efforts to preserve his integrity in the face of provocation. Better still are Burke's evocative descriptions of New Orleans life both high and low. The book is marred slightly by a resemblance to the Travis McGee seriesRobicheaux lives on a houseboat and has a penchant for color-laden metaphor. But Neon Rain is a well-crafted novel with a likable hero. Louise A. Merriam, L.E. Phillips Memorial P.L., Eau Claire, Wis.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
San Francisco Chronicle Burke writes with honesty and tough compassion....An intelligent and intriguing story of greed, vengeance, and the precarious redemptive qualities of love. -- Review

Customer Reviews

A Weak Start To A Terrific Series
The best way to read any literary series, including those involving hard-boiled detectives, is to pick them up in the order the books were written. That way, the individual stories take on greater meaning as part of the ongoing evolution of a principal character as he or she develops and changes. In light of this, it's tempting to recommend that prospective readers of James Lee Burke's Louisiana-based Dave Robicheaux series should start with *The Neon Rain*, which sets the stage for the numerous subsequent books.

Anyone who reads Burke's prose should be impressed by his unusual gift for verbal description. His ability to paint word pictures of places, characters, moods, and feelings is exquisite, and for this reason alone a reader might plow through the entire story. However, the plot construction of *The Neon Rain* is so anemic that I would not be surprised if many of those who read this New Orleans-based story simply refuse to go on to the subsequent stories set in New Iberia. This is a shame, since most of these later works are excellent mysteries in which the stories are far more complex and engrossing.

In this novel, and to some extent in all of them, Burke employs a formulaic approach in which his protagonist veers from crisis to self-inflicted crisis (in pursuit of righteousness and justice, of course), with the narrative invariably punctuated both by breathtaking descriptions of places and people (and also meals), and periodic episodes involving bloody mayhem. After a while it gets pretty predictable; in his later works, however, Burke develops story lines that are sufficiently interesting that he can make the formula work, at least most of the time.

It should be noted also that Burke demonstrates throughout his *corpus* an admirable sympathy with the downtrodden and disadvantaged both in America and abroad, along with a sneering dislike of the rich and powerful. This political aspect of his writing is certainly unusual within the detective genre, and for me, at least, is highly refreshing.

So, should people seeking a great detective novel read pick up *The Neon Rain*? Yes, but ONLY if they resolve beforehand to view it as a kind of "prequel" to the higher quality Robicheaux novels that follow.

Three and 1/2 stars...
After reading two Dave Robicheaux mysteries by James Lee Burke, I decided to read this series from the very beginning. Neon Rain is the 1st book in the now 14 book series and was extremely helpful in filling in the blanks of Robicheaux's past that are only hinted at in later books.

Neon Rain opens in New Orleans where Robicheaux is a lieutenant in the New Orleans Police Department. He lives on a houseboat in Lake Pontchatrain, is recently divorced, is a Viet Nam vet and a recovering alcoholic. He carries around more than his fair share of scars and baggage. A man on death row at Angola Prison asks to see Robicheaux hours before he is executed, and informs Robicheaux that there is a contract out on his life. Robicheaux is just as surprised as anybody, but it involves the chance discovery of a young black prostitute floating dead in a bayou. In trying to solve the mystery of the contract, the lieutenant stumbles upon lots of graft and corruption in New Orleans that starts with prostitution and drugs, and ends up with murder, tax fraud, and smuggling arms to Central America. It's sometimes hard to figure out who are the bad guys, who are informants and who are the government agents. And the more involved Robicheaux becomes, the more dangerous his life comes.

This is a good start for Burke, although the plot got a little confusing in spots. Robicheaux is a loose canon, and it's hard to tell why his boss thinks he's such a good cop. He can be brutal and violent and unreasonable. And he never follows any rules. Also, Robicheaux becomes romantically involved with Annie Ballard, but I couldn't figure out why she was attracted to him. Still, Burke is a master of description and observation. Some of my favorites include "Reason is a word I always associated with bureaucrats, paper shufflers, and people who formed committees that were never intended to solve anything." Or "My father didn't read or write, but in many ways he learned more from hunting and fishing in the marsh than I had from my years of college education and experience as a policeman." And finally, in comparing himself to a general who also served in Viet Nam, Robicheaux muses "Like those Confederate soldiers buried under the lawn of Jefferson Davis's home, some people share historical real estate that will always be their private country."

The good news is that Burke took this good book and turned it into a terrific series. I plan on reading them all.

Mystery 101 (One Man's Continuning Education)
Except for a few Christies in my teens, I never read mysteries at all (except for one or two that somehow made it into my college curriculum). It had less to do with a lack of interest than a lack of time. I was a struggling academic a long time (too long) and, although I enjoyed mystery films and TV shows, almost everything I read had to do with what I thought would be my life's vocation.

But the genre always intrigued me. International literary figures from Borges to Duerrenmatt have championed the genre and have often used it to their own ends. I was aware that many mystery writers were quite serious about their writing and that much of it rivaled the best in contemporary serious literature.

So in recent years, I've been playing catch up. I've joined with others in forming a Mystery Discussion Group in my public library...and most of these folks are much more knowledgeable than I am. In the past year, we have been doing a lot of sampling of various series, usually a very early work.

I will say that of all the authors we've discussed thus far, James Lee Burke was the least well received--by OTHERS! I found this hard hitting, hard bitten writer to be compelling. But most of the other members of the group seem to prefer more of a "drawing room" type mystery. I don't think I had ever really realized how great a gulf there was between the various sub-genres (I guess it's the Hammett vs. Christie school of thought).

If you've ever railed against the "bloodless" old-school, high tea kind of mysteries, you may want to check Burke out. People really die brutal, ugly deaths here. Murder is not seen as an intellectual puzzle, but as a horrible, de-humanizing reality. For that alone, I give Burke high marks. His complex, not very likeable (anti-)hero, Dave Robicheaux is another. This scarred Viet Nam vet is cynical, bitter and almost unapproachable. Yet he retains a core of decency that, I think, will redeem him in most readers' eyes. But like his extraordinarily understanding and patient love interest in the novel, the reader will have to cut through an almost impenetrable wall of defenses before discovering that moral core.

Some of the readers below have commented that this is not the strongest effort in the Dave Robicheaux series. That seems likely: first efforts usually aren't. I will certainly encourage my fellow discussion group members to sample other Burke novels before they pass final judgment. But I don't expect that Robicheaux, or Burke himself, to develop a rosier take on life and of human nature. Dave Robicheaux seems to belong to the subset of detective that we call "hard-boiled." I'm interested in reading other entries in the series, and know that if NEON RAIN is any indication, they'll be chock-full of surprises. But one thing I know not to expect is for Dave Robicheaux to turn into Mr.Warmth at any point. Now THAT would be a real disappointment!