Enjoyed this one very much, another great suspense thriller from author James Lee Burke. Never disappoints, highly recommend

I read a bunch of books in this series to prepare for this ARC and I am so glad I did, the backstory is integral to this latest book. Clete and Dave are both fucked up from their pasts but do their best to be good men following their moral code. However, the seem to fall into a shit-show almost every time they turn around! I can't wait for the next installment.

#Clete
#NetGalley

Thank you to Atlantic Grove and NetGalley for an advance digital copy of this e-book in exchange for an honest review.

I am a huge fan of James Lee Burke but I have to say his last two books have thrown me off.

The flow of the book is the same, with all the same drama and plenty of nasty criminals but I just had a really hard time engaging with the story. The whole Joan of Arc hallucinations seemed weird to me and felt distracting to the rest of the storyline. Still not sure what the point of it was. There were also references to Flags of the Bayou which I get are key to the setting but again distracting.

I'm sure lots of people will love this book, maybe this just wasn't the right book for me at the right time. I'll have to give it another read at another time, maybe then things will fall into place for me a little more easily.

Published by Atlantic Monthly Press on June 11, 2024

Some of my favorite crime writers have a greater interest in the supernatural than I do. James Lee Burke is one of those. I suppose monstrous crimes can be seen as the product of evil and evil can be seen as the realm of the supernatural. A disembodied force of evil has symbolic value for writers who confront crimes that are beyond ordinary experience. But the supernatural in Clete takes the form of a good person rather than an embodiment of evil.

Clete is narrated by Dave Robicheaux’s best friend, Clete Purcel. At various times in the novel, Clete gets advice from the ghost of Joan of Arc, or maybe Ingrid Bergman playing that character. Either way, she occasionally materializes and saves Clete’s life or cautions him not to be a fool. Clete has engaged in foolish behavior throughout his life, but now he’s sober and dedicated to helping others in his work as a private investigator. If Joan of Arc wants to help him, who am I to say that Clete is the victim of an overactive imagination?

The plot follows multiple threads. They are joined by Clete’s Cadillac. Clete leaves it at a car wash. When he returns, he finds that some thugs from the Dixie Mafia are taking it apart. After dealing with the thugs, he discovers that they were searching for something that they believe to have been concealed in his car. One theory is that the car wash owner, Eddy Durbin, let his brother Andy use the car to mule some drugs from Mexico. Clete later learns that the hidden object may be something different from the black tar heroin or fentanyl that is prevalent in Louisiana.

The nature of the substance supposedly hidden in Clete’s car is a bit vague. At one point Clete is made to believe that his exposure to the hidden substance might be fatal. The threat posed by the “lethal chemical called Leprechaun” enters and leaves the story at random intervals, never taking a firm hold. An FBI agent who seems to be looking for Leprechaun similarly makes occasional appearances without adding much to the story.

Clete connects the destruction of his car to a Nazi named Baylor Hemmings. Clete carries a picture of a Holocaust victim and her children, apparently to remind himself of how evil the world can be. Clete’s occasional references to the picture seem forced. They never resonate with the power that Burke likely intended. Of the thousands of Holocaust images, what it is about this particular picture that has gripped Clete is never made clear.

In his search for Hemmings, Clete questions a bail bondsman named Sperm-O Sellars, whose sideline is described as white slavery. Clete and Robicheau rescue a captive woman named Chen whose passivity has been assured by keeping her high on heroin. They’ll eventually need to rescue her again.

Sperm-O made the mistake of grabbing the ankle of Gracie Lamar, a dancer at a strip club who kicked his teeth in. Sperm-O hires Clete to find her after she jumps bail. Gracie turns out to be an ex-cop who got fired for unorthodox conduct that included killing some men who, in Clete’s judgment, probably deserved their fate.

All of that somehow ties into a plot thread involving Lauren Bow, a con man who made a fortune selling soap franchises, a Ponzi scheme that has gotten him into tax trouble with the IRS. His wife, Clara Bow, wants to hire Clete. She says she intends to divorce her abusive husband and claims he is blackmailing her with forged evidence that she was a participant in his tax fraud. Clete is a protector of abused women and so, against his better judgment, agrees to help her.

Bodies begin to drop. Clete and Robicheaux become targets, perhaps because Clete took his car to the wrong car wash, perhaps because they are questioning dangerous people.

In addition to Joan of Arc, another character seems to be related to the supernatural. When he dies, his body decomposes at a startling rate and with an unusually putrid stench. I can’t say that I understand how that character fits into the larger plot. But then, I can't understand why Joan of Arc has taken an interest in Clete Purcel.

The plot seems more of a muddle than is customary with a James Lee Burke novel. It is nevertheless interesting and moves at a satisfying pace, not so quickly that it overlooks the need to build atmosphere and suspense, not so slowly that the reader’s mind begins to wander. As always, I admire Burke’s prose. He’s simply one of the best wordsmiths in the crime writing business. In Clete, however, he tends to express the same ideas redundantly.

Burke didn’t sell me on the Leprechaun plot or on Joan of Arc, but his action scenes are credible and the characters of Dave Robicheaux and Clete Purcel have become iconic in the world of crime fiction. I always look forward to reading about their adventures. The different perspective here, seeing Dave through Clete’s eyes, adds another window through which the reader can view their enduring friendship. If this isn’t the best of the Robicheaux novels, it is still better than the average thriller writer can produce.

RECOMMENDED

I love this series and Clete was a masterful addition. The character was portrayed with incredible depth and emotion and the engaging plot was a thrilling ride.
Many thanks to Grove Atlantic and to Netgalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion

In the latest installment in his famous Detective Dave Robicheaux series, author James Lee Burke brings Dave’s partner and friend Clete Purcel to the forefront for the first time as Clete and Dave attempt to stop ruthless smugglers of a dangerous new drug. This may be my favorite out of this very long running series. Learning more about Clete has made me want to go back and start reading this series all over again!

James Lee Burke is an American treasure. I swear he could turn his grocery list into art! He has a way with description. It's never flowery or overdone, yet the way he describes his settings and the way he turns his characters into real breathing humans is nothing short of remarkable. I'm a fan of the Dave Robicheaux series, and it was interesting inhabiting Clete's head for a change. If I'm honest, this isn't my favorite book in the series, but Burke's writing is still mountains higher than most of the stuff out there!

Thank you to NetGalley, James Lee Burke, and Grove Atlantic for allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I like this author a lot,but I really prefer the books that are not part of this series. The plot of this book was too convoluted and preposterous for me, and when Clete started conversing with Joan of Arc the book lost me. This was not one of my favorites.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

In one of my favorite series, James Lee Burke returns to the pages, but this time, not with Detective Dave Robicheaux. Instead, we get a first person account of Clete Purcell, the other of the Bobbsey Twins from Homicide. This first person account from Clete's point-of-view is an incredible narrative from one of the most fascinating characters in fiction. This book dives deep into Clete's past, his troubled life, and everything in between. It is a great novel that kept me reading late into the night!

My thanks to the Author publisher's and NetGalley for providing me with a Kindle version of this book to read and honestly review.
The Author is quite simply a Master of the art of storytelling.
Clever engaging intelligent with superb characters throughout. This is the twenty fourth book in the excellent 'Dave Robicheaux' series, though our hero takes a back seat in this story to his friend Clete Purcel. Gripping from first to last page with plenty of humour and wit to soften the threat and violence.
Only this Author could introduce the apparition or ghost if you prefer of Joan of Arc to the mean streets of Louisiana without her seeming out of place to the storyline
Completely and utterly recommended.

Most books in the 'Dave Robicheaux series' are told from the POV of Detective Robicheaux. This 24th novel in the series is a slight departure, and Dave's best friend Clete Purcell takes the lead. The book can be read as a standalone, but familiarity with the characters is a bonus.

Both Dave and Clete are Vietnam vets, and both suffer from PTSD because of their terrible experiences in Southeast Asia. Following Vietnam, Dave and Clete were partners in the New Orleans Police Department, where they called themselves the 'Bobbsey Twins from Homicide'. In New Orleans, Dave and Clete dealt with mobsters, gambling, prostitution, drugs, loan sharks, money laundering, extortion, murder, and the inherent corruption in Louisiana.

Clete's inability to follow rules got him kicked off the New Orleans police force, and he's now a private investigator/bail bondsman in New Orleans and New Iberia. Clete works for gangsters and lowlifes; eats to excess; drinks too much; falls for the wrong women; and uses violence (and worse) against his enemies. Clete loves Dave like a brother, and would give his life for him.

Dave is now a recovering alcoholic who drinks Dr. Pepper and works as a sheriff's investigator for the Iberia Parish Sheriff's Office. Dave is a widower with a grown adopted daughter, Alafair, who he rescued from a downed plane when she was five. Dave sometimes has blackouts, during which he does violent things he can't remember. Dave considers Clete his best friend, and rues his pal's self-destructive behavior.


*****

As the story opens in the 1990s, Clete Purcell leaves his vintage, lavender pink Cadillac Eldorado convertible, with a stereo that plays his jazz and R&B and rock and roll tapes, at Eddy's Car Wash. A couple of days after Clete picks up his car, he wakes up to find three roughnecks ripping his Cadillac apart. One vandal is covered in tattoos and holding a crowbar; one is wearing dirty cargo pants, and one sports a Neo-Nazi T-shirt. Clete, who carries a picture of a Jewish mother and her children going to the gas chamber in a Nazi concentration camp, ESPECIALLY hates Neo-Nazis and racists.

It seems Clete's car got mixed up with another Cadillac at the car wash, and the lowlifes are looking for their 'goods' hidden in the car. A vicious fight ensues, Clete gets knocked out, and the vandals skedaddle. When Clete recovers, he confronts the owner of the car wash, Eddy Durbin, who's very cagy. When pressed, Eddy admits his shady, brain-damaged brother Andy was involved with whatever was hidden in the Cadillac, but Eddy insists he doesn't know what it is. Clete calls his friend Dave Robicheaux, who agrees to hang out at Clete's New Orleans house for a few days, in case the creeps come back. Clete and Dave do some nosing around, and learn that the Neo-Nazi who ripped up Clete's car belongs to a racist group called the New Rising.

Afterwards, circumstances lead Clete to harbor three women in his house: a night club dancer called Gracie Lamar, who got into trouble for kicking an aggressive customer in the mouth, and damaging his teeth; a young Chinese drug addict called Chen, who was rescued from a human trafficker; and a cleaning lady named Miss Dorothy, who's looking after Chen, and helping her kick the habit.

Meanwhile, all sorts of people seem desperate to find 'the goods' (supposedly) hidden in Clete's Cadillac. Some of them are murdered in horribly gruesome ways, which brings in a New Orleans vice cop and an FBI agent.

As this is happening, Clete meets a pretty filmmaker named Clara Bow, who hires him to investigate her crooked husband. It's clear Clara has an agenda, and Clete has a habit of falling for pretty young women, but this time Clete is 'rescued' by 15th century Joan of Arc. Joan has begun appearing to Clete when he needs help, or requires a nudge in the right direction, and Clete is convinced she's real.

Clete and Dave eventually learn the 'lost goods' the Neo-Nazis and their cohorts are looking for is a deadly substance called Leprechaun, that could do immeasurable harm. The conspirators don't care, as long as they make money from selling it. Clete and Dave make it their mission to stop the 'dealers', which leads to hazardous situations, violence, and death. The Bobbsey Twins from Homicide have a hard time dealing with all this horror, and Clete drinks too much, and tries to prevent Dave from blacking out and killing people.

As always in the Dave Robicheaux books, James Lee Burke does a superb job of capturing the ambiance of southern Louisiana. with its mixed population of Acadians, Whites, Blacks, and others; the swamps and bayous; the spicy Cajun food, the jazz music; recreational fishing, etc. The reader almost feels like a visitor.

This is an engaging thriller, and I enjoyed the adventure scenes as well as the delectable scenes where Clete and Dave enjoy great local food, such as: porkchops; biscuits with butter and milk gravy; deep-fried fish and shrimp and oysters; fried chicken and dirty rice; ham and onion sandwiches with tomatoes, mayonnaise, and sauce piquante; beignets and coffee; and more.

Thanks to Netgalley, James Lee Burke, and Atlantic Monthly Press for a copy of the book.

Love James Lee Burke's writing style, and was drawn in by this being a book finally centering around Clete, who has been a supporting character for so long. It did not disappoint. A must read.

This series is one I've enjoyed for years. Nice to see a book focus on Dave's sidekick, Clete. Great storytelling, sometimes violent, but always wrapped up nicely. Will continue to devour these!

Clete is a step back in time focused on Clete Purcel rather than Dave Robichaux, his former partner at NOPD. It varies in voice, spending more time on the action and less on the moodiness of the Louisiana Bayou. It is a terse look at violence, hidden motives, and the trafficking of drugs, especially a new and dangerous designer drug. But it also is an absorbing look at depression, anxiety, and hallucinations tied to a life where abject and horrific violence sears the soul. As always, Burke’s authorial hand is deft, the tension palpable, the horrors imminent and often visited upon those who are most peripheral to the evil and undeserving of them.

It's been a month since I read Clete, and I still don't know how I feel about it. I've recently begun reading James Lee Burke, and this was my first time reading the Dave Robicheaux series; I didn't know what to expect. The few books I've read of Burke's are visceral, atmospheric, and beautifully written. And that is the problem with Clete.

Clete is not an easy read by any means. It is dark, violent, and honestly depressing as hell. Burke can pull the reader into his stories; you feel like you're next to Robicheaux and Clete. The flashbacks are heartbreaking and ethereal.

Clete took me places I didn't want to go. I don't think I've been as depressed when I finished a book as I've been after Clete. And that is the crux of the problem. The writing is breathtaking, and poignant, and forces the reader to face some uncomfortable truths. No matter how uncomfortable Clete made me, I couldn't put it down. That, to me, is the hallmark of a standout author.

Thank you to Atlantic Monthly Press and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of Clete.

Clete by James Lee Burke focuses on Clete Purcel, Dave Robicheaux’s loyal friend, and partner in the twenty-fourth novel of the Dave Robicheaux series.

The novel opens during the 1990s and before Hurricane Katrina and 9/11.

A lengthy review of Clete is not needed, nor required. Readers of previous novels are well aware of Purcel’s history and such a review would be unnecessarily redundant.

Only a few things needed to be described for readers and the major one is that James Lee Burke returns with another enjoyable novel in the Dave Robicheaux series, but mostly from the point of view of Clete Purcel. Like always, his craft of word assemblage never disappoints and Clete continues that on.

The story contains similar elements from previous Robicheaux novels, including mystical aspects, the devouring of the powerless by the powerful, and the eternal battle between right and wrong. There is nothing wildly new here other than the change in character perspective focus but that is not a bad thing at all. Opening a new James Lee Burke novel is like returning to that favorite, high-end steak restaurant - even though you are going to get your favorite steak you’ve had before, you still know it will be good before even that first bite.

To me, the most fascinating thing about the novel was how Mr. Burke provided an authentic, but less florally descriptive voice of Clete that still colorfully illuminated the story but in a somewhat more uncouth way.

Reading Clete would be like asking Cormac McCarthy and James Lee Burke to describe the Mona Lisa in their own, best words and that is Clete - it is so mentally visual, but in a much different way.

Loyal readers will not be disappointed and readers just starting this series will always know they will have a Clete installment to read later on.

Clete is available for purchase and is highly recommended. Netgalley provided an ARC for the promise of a fair review.

The heat lightning over the dark waters of Bayou Teche. Victor's Cafeteria. The pink neon bowling pin in a deserted bowling alley. And the two old friends, Clete and Dave, in their 24th adventure--imperfect but devoted pals to the end--I hope! Burke's most recent books--perhaps since Katrina--are angrier and more reflective about the mess we humans have created in the world. The Bayou's beauty is graduallly being destroyed by litter and global warning. Dave and Clete realize that maybe some people, as Dave would say, come from different trees of origin. The darkness of characters who want to destroy the entire world fill this novel. It was so much fun to have Clete as the first person narrator. He is an alcoholic, with PTSD, and yet a bottomless heart for the downtrodden.
I just loved this book for its characters (Sperm-O)! and the beauty of the Bayou and the noirish rain falling on NOLA too. I will hate when this series ends.

Book Review
Clete
James Lee Burke
reviewed by Lou Jacobs

readersremains.com | Goodreads

Another tour de force from one of today’s most iconic writers. Burke returns to his marvelous Dave Robicheaux series, but this time the main character is Dave’s quirky and beloved partner, Clete Purcel. Both grew up together in New Orleans’ Iberia Parish and went off to Vietnam, experiencing horrors that have left images permanently ingrained in their minds, never to be removed.
Clete served two tours in Vietnam and was highly decorated with three Purple Hearts, the Silver Star, and the Navy Cross, but left with a permanent scar in his heart. Both he and Dave have devoted their lives to aiding the disenfranchised, weak, and emotionally scarred. Clete has carried in his wallet for over two decades a photo he tore out of a magazine. It hauntingly shows a Jewish woman walking to the showers of Auschwitz with her three children following. He feels we can never purge the earth of those responsible and their present-day heirs. Burke weaves another epic and tantalizingly complex tale set in Louisiana’s Iberia Parish in the late 1990s.
Clete has just returned home after retrieving his beloved Eldorado Cadillac from Eddy Durbin’s Car Wash. He awakens in the early morning to a racket in his courtyard. Three low-life thugs are tearing apart his car in search of what he suspects are drugs. Did Eddy or his useless brother Andy stash some type of contraband? He ambles downstairs in his bathrobe and pink bunny slippers to confront the situation. One of the idiots actually has a t-shirt that states: “Six Million Was Not Enough.” This alone infuriates Clete. He takes all of them on in a cinematic fight scene, which unfortunately renders him unconscious after a blow to the head with a tire iron. The image of the heavily tattooed man with the crowbar is firmly ingrained in his mind. He quickly learns that the anti-Semitic tattooed man is Baylor Hemmings, a rising star in the New Rising militia group. Burke weaves into his tale a cast of flawed and colorful characters right out of Dante’s Inferno, each more odious and conflicted than the one before. Meanwhile, Clete is approached by the beautiful and mysterious Clara Bow, who wants to hire him to investigate her estranged husband’s shady dealings—not their shared involvement in a major Ponzi scheme, but his possible involvement in drug smuggling. On the street is a new drug laced with a deadly substance that could annihilate civilization. In typical Burke fashion, Clete is intermittently visited by the visage of Joan of Arc, who offers encouragement, advice, and appropriate warnings. She also apparently saves Clete’s life by offing an attacker with a long-range sniper rifle.
James Lee Burke continues to use his usual mesmerizing characters and twisted plot developments in the lush, florid setting of Louisiana. He paints a captivating tale of white slavery, corruption, women and class dominance, and the ever-present escalating drug industry. He provides thought-provoking statements that are relevant now as then. Even with his marvelous and evocative run-on sentences, the mood and imagery of the tale emerge with escalating suspense and tension. Sometimes it’s necessary to study past evils in hopes of dispelling them in the present and future.
Thanks to NetGalley and Atlantic Monthly Press for providing an Uncorrected Proof for my review in exchange for an honest review. Hopefully, Burke is not finished penning these marvelous tales.

Set in the lates ‘90s in southern Louisiana, Clete is the 24th book in the Dave Robicheaux series by James Lee Burke only, in this novel, Cletus Purcell, Dave’s long-time friend, one-time partner in the police, and now private investigator, is narrator and main protagonist. He had left his prized cadillac at a friend’s car wash for detailing but, when he returns several days later, he finds it being torn apart by three goons linked to the cartels. This will lead him and Dave on a chase to prevent the unleashing of a new and extremely toxic substance.

James Lee Burke is one of America’s greatest writers whose books never disappoint and Clete is a good example of why. At heart, Burke’s tales are about the battle between good and evil but that doesn’t make them simple. Clete, once sidekick, now main protagonist, has a very distinct voice that adds layers to his character and neither he nor the story let up from first page to last. Combining elements of noir, southern Gothic, spirituality and a touch of the supernatural with beautiful, descriptive prose, and complex characters, this is one atmospheric, gritty, often violent, and always compelling read that examines many of the tough issues of the time but that are still as important, if not more so today, and I loved every nail-biting twist and turn of it.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review

I had difficulty in engaging with the story mostly due to the writing style and language. Clete and David Robicheaux are dense and complex characters with troubling pasts that get mixed up with present life and cases. They get involved in a ring of violence, crime and drugs that easily spiral out of control. There's a good plot and a lots of action. Entertaining but not an easy read.
I thank Mr. Burke, his publisher, and NetGalley for this ARC.