When it comes to literate and violent motifs in a major detective series James Lee Burke has few peers. For more than two decades the Dave Robicheaux detective series has blossomed and each of the recent novels have been lauded by the critics. Burke is a major force in American crime. This is Jim’s 31st novel and the 19th Dave Robicheaux.
Plotline from the authors website: anguishing in a recovery unit on St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans, Dave Robicheaux is fighting an enemy more insidious than the one who put a bullet in his back a month ago in a shootout on Bayou Teche. The morphine meant to dull his pain is steadily gnawing away at his resolve, playing tricks on his mind, and luring him back into the addict mentality that once threatened to destroy his life and family… Dave becomes obsessed with the song [Creole Belle] and the vivid memory of Tee Jolie, and when he learns that her sister has turned up dead inside a block of ice floating in the Gulf, he believes that putting the evils of the past to rest is more urgent than ever before.
Meanwhile, an oil spill in the Gulf brings back intense feelings for Dave of losing his father to a rig explosion years ago. As the oil companies continue to risk human lives in pursuit of wealth and power, Dave begins to see links to the Melton sisters, even when no one else shares his suspicions. Dave’s ex-partner Clete Purcel helps him search for Tee Jolie even as he fears for his friend’s mental health and safety. But Clete has his own troubles too; he’s discovered an illegitimate daughter who may be working as a contract killer—and may have set her sights on someone he loves. Creole Belle is a resurrection story for the ages, with James Lee Burke at the peak of his masterful career and Dave Robicheaux facing his most intense and personal battle yet, against the known and unknown forces that corrupt and destroy even the best of men.
Advance review from Publishers Weekly: “MWA Grand Master Burke continues to raise the bar for himself, and the reader, as shown by his lyrical, insightful 19th Dave Robicheaux novel .. . . Meanwhile, Clete Purcel, Robicheaux’s hard-drinking best friend, has problems of his own: some local wise guys are trying to blackmail him, and he fears his lost daughter, Gretchen, may be a notorious assassin. As Robicheaux and Purcel suit up again to take on an array of foes, including corrupt politicians, oil men, and a wealthy old man they suspect is a Nazi war criminal, they feel the weight of their own history, and begin to hear the ghostly whisper of mortality. This is another stunner from a modern master”.
This Scorpion Press edition contains an appreciation by the highly regarded ex-pat crime novelist Barry Maitland living in Australia (known for his Brock & Kolla series). He wrote: “This is a work of literary art, and in the end perhaps its most enduring feature is the way in which the landscape, the characters and the high-octane story line are captured with such compelling prose. From the elegiac descriptions of the bayou country, with their almost Shakespearian iambic pentameter rhythms, to the razor-sharp dialogue and pithy character portraits, Burke’s language casts a spell without ever becoming self-indulgent or redundant. We surrender to it from the first line and relish each turn of phrase, each unexpected observation along the way”.
It will be issued as a special edition of 75 numbered and signed copies and is due in late November at £70.00. Several other James Lee Burke books in Scorpion Press editions are available from the shop.
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