The New Iberia Blues

Upfront I have to admit, I am biased when it comes to the writing of James Lee Burke and his Dave Robicheaux series. Burke would have to really turn out a complete dud before I would rate his novels poorly.

With that, his newest Robicheaux novel, The New Iberia Blues, does not disappoint. As always, Burke's writing is like looking at paintings where an artist is skilled at bringing forth the most vibrant aspects of all colors while creating a perfectly assembled painting.

In The New Iberia Blues, Davie Robicheaux and a new deputy are investigating reports of a screaming woman in the bayou and while doing so, interview Louisiana-born, film director Desmond Cormier at his waterside estate. Cormier has returned home home to fashion his film masterpiece, bringing along his unctuous companion Antoine Butterworth. While speaking to the two, Robicheaux eyes a woman's body crucified to a wooden cross floating in the water. The story unfolds from this point into a violent mystery involving other murders that melds together the past, evil and ruminations on good, evil and the mortality of humans, particularly Dave Robicheaux.

Burke brings back all the familiar characters, as well as introducing new ones, including a love interest for the dour Robicheaux. Burke has also brought back Chester "Smiley" Wimple, the interesting, sociopathic, sometimes-for-hire-hitman-killer introduced in the previous Robicheaux novel.

How all these characters and plot strings pull together is for the reader to discover along the way.

While it is strongly suggested new readers to the Robicheaux series start with the first novel, one thing Burke does well is to offer concise re-introductions of characters and past events that allow the reader to stay current with his new writings.

The New Iberia Blues by James Lee Burke- The Twenty-Second Dave Robicheaux novel starts off like a visit from an old friend, then takes you down a dark forbidding road. Movie-making, and Hollywood low-lives once again become part of the story, and Dave must wade through all the blood, greed, and death to find the truth behind the silver screen. I‘ve read quite a few of this series and this one holds up with the best, but at times it gets too depressing, all the bad there is in the human heart.

You know what you’re going to get when you pick up a JLB novel: the story will be gutsy and the language ornate; the plot will be convoluted and the thread of the piece sometimes hard to follow. But one thing you can be sure of is that if you have any appreciation at all of his gift then day you pick up his next book will be a good day – a very good day.

I’ve been following the adventures of his Louisiana based cop Dave Robicheaux for years and I’ve grown to love him, with all his foibles, and his side-kick Clete Purcell too. To me they’re the best pairing in crime fiction. Hell, they’re the best pairing in any brand of fiction. Dave is getting on in years now, but he still wears his detective’s badge with pride. He’s not wedded to rules in the same way some cops are but his heart is in the right place and his determination to track down the bad guys is unrivalled. Clete – his ex-partner from his NOPD days – doesn’t work to any rules at all, and has been described by the author as the nemesis of authority figures and those who sought power over others…a one-man demolition derby.

In this episode a young woman is found impaled on a cross, floating in the sea off Cypremort Point. The location is close to the sometime home of an old friend of Dave’s. Desmond Cormier is a local boy made good, a movie maker who made his fortune in Hollywood. He's returned to Southern Louisiana to make a film and his whole entourage is in town. Is Desmond or a man who is staying with him in any way linked to this strange, ritualistic death?

Dave’s daughter, Alafair, has gotten wrapped up in the film making endeavour and is spending time with one of the producers, much to Dave’s chagrin. Throw in an escaped prisoner running loose and the return of one of JLB’s legendary bad men, Smiley Wimple, and you have all the ingredients for a pretty wild romp. And as the body count mounts Dave, with Clete in tow, desperately tries to make sense of it all and track down the killer(s).

This book is replete with dreamlike encounters with characters from Dave’s past and throughout we get the the clear message that he is beginning to see the coming of the end of days as he ruminates and broods over the ruination of the land he loves, the ostentatious displays of wealth he sees around him and the general greed of today. Above all it’s his perception of the loss of Acadiana – the physical and cultural changes to the French Louisiana region his mother and father inhabited and which he was born into - that distresses him most.

As always with this writer, the prose is top drawer and the characterisation is brilliantly done. In my view he writes the best literary crime fiction out there; I enjoy his books more than any other author I can name. Long may he keep writing and turning out novels of this quality.

This is the 22nd book in the long established Dave Robicheaux series. For some reason I have only read a couple of the previous books but I felt able to understand and enjoy this book without knowing much or any of the back story.

The writing was rich and lyrical and immediately drew me in. The plot was complex but credible and the characters brilliantly drawn and I devoured the book over a mammoth two day sitting.

This is a novel for readers who appreciate quality writing and I now have another twenty or so books to catch up on given how greatly I enjoyed the one.

Highly recommended.

A few years ago, I was at a Sydney Writers Festival event where Irish author John Connolly, himself a terrific prose stylist in the crime genre, called James Lee Burke the world’s greatest living crime writer. “You may disagree,” said Connolly, “but then you’ll be wrong.” While I do agree with Connolly, I’d add that the brilliance of Burke won’t be for everyone. His novels are a rich gumbo of beauty and foulness, humanity and cruelty. Beyond lyrical, his prose can be ornate, his stories gilded with symbolism.

The New Iberia Blues shows that Burke hasn’t lost any pep off his fastball. The twenty-second novel featuring Dave Robicheaux sees the legendary Louisiana investigator once again crossing swords with some vile human beings and calling into question his own actions and choices. A preacher’s daughter is pumped full of drugs and crucified, a death row inmate has escaped, an informant for Dave’s longtime pal Clete Purcel (who’s a rhino in a china shop of a private eye) is tortured and dragged to his death, and Dave’s fondness for his new, younger partner is matched by a Hollywood director who rose to fame from the streets of New Orleans. Meanwhile Dave’s beloved daughter Alafair gets involved with an older man who’s witnessed humanity at its worst, teetering Dave between protectiveness and hypocrisy.

Burke somehow manages to perfectly balance freshness and familiarity. The New Iberia Blues delivers everything long-time fans have come to expect from this doyen of crime writing – lush settings, lyrical prose, brutal musings on society’s ills and personal demons – while adding new threads too.

Timeless but not stuck in time, Burke doesn’t look like losing the throne anytime soo

Louisiana and Dave Robicheaux are synonymous. I’m not sure a story about one could be told without the other. Both have their flaws, their demons, and their promises of a better tomorrow. Locals, Hollywood types, villains from the past, innocents, and “guilty-of-something’s” populate the latest installment of the series as why try to figure whodunnit and why.

Dave Robicheaux has a closer relationship with the dead than any sane man can. But he hangs on to his sanity and humanity amidst unbelievable evil in the latest in this long running series. Nobody describes Louisiana like James Lee Burke, and in "New Iberia Blues” we return to the bayous of Louisiana and the people who call them home. Robicheaux and his long time partner Clete Purcel take on a creepy collection of characters, whose past misdeeds weave a complicated net in the present. I love this series, and enjoy every new entry!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Sometimes larger books are filled with endless and unnecessary descriptions, but this book you will be glad is a big one. There is action all the way through, and the short and precise descriptions paint pictures of the area, the people and the culture. You will really get into everything with the great language, action and mystery.

Book Review: The New Iberia Blues, A Dave Robicheaux Novel by James Lee Burke

As a first time reader of James Lee Burke, there is much to like about his style of writing - elegant prose, meticulous details and a steady douse of down-to-earth humor, but not overly so - an easy, pleasant read on a comfortable, overstuffed armchair, finished in a day of so.

Declared the "heavyweight champ" by Michael Connelly, I will certainly be reading more of Mr. Burke.

What isn't a big deal is not having read even one of the first 21 books on Burke's Detective Dave Robicheaux. You'd quickly get acquainted with his die-hard friend, P.I. Clete Purcel, joined at the hip since they were beat cops in New Orleans, and deduce he's loved by his (adopted Salvadoran) daughter, Alafair, who's a lawyer of sorts; that there's some fixation for and a bit of mysterious past behind his bombshell partner, Bailey Ribbons; and that there's some sordid history with a colorful, wickedly deranged hitman named Chester "Smiley" Wimpie, along with some prior acrimonious dealings with the Mob.

The story is a delightful smorgasbord of lively characters, plots and sub-plots - a rags-to-riches Cajun movie producer born in the bayou, a mercenary sidekick with a fetish for "streaking", some charming movie actor /ex-intelligence officer, a escaped convict who claims he's innocent, a Maltese cross, tarot cards, gruesome ritual murders, a Baptist minister and his do-gooder daughter, the Aryan Brotherhood, the Mob from New Jersey and more hitmen. Culminated with an unexpected twist for the finale, as to be expected from a master thriller of international renown.

The author vivid portrays the culture and people ("...like his grandparents, he belonged to that group of mixed-blood Indians unkindly called redbones..."), and the lush woods, brackish bayous and swamps of Louisiana, far from the carnival party streets of New Orleans.

And the language: "...Desmond's story was a piece of Americana, assuring us that wealth and a magical kingdom are available to the least of us, provided we do not awaken on our own penchant for breaking our heroes on a medieval wheel and revising them later, safely downwind from history..."

Review based on an advance reading copy provided by NetGalley and Simon & Schuster.

Having read only one other novel by James Lee Burke, I found the narrative structures between the two similar. The story was interesting, but it's just not my cup of tea.

Hollywood director, Desmond Cormier, has chosen Iberia Parish to film his latest opus. Dave Robichaux knew him from when he was a young man in New Orleans with big dreams of becoming a director in Hollywood. On a visit to Cormier's house, he spots the body of a young woman tied to a cross float by. When both Desmond and a house guest deny seeing the body, Robichaux is convinced that at least one of them is somehow linked to the crime especially when he learns of the sordid past of the guest. But without more substantive evidence, his investigation is stymied. To make matters worse, his daughter, Alafaire, is working with the company and is convinced Dave is wrong.

At the same time, Dave's best friend, Clete, spots a man jumping from a train.When it is reported that a convicted killer has escaped prison and may be headed for the area, they suspect that it might be the man Clete saw. As the body count rises, all staged in grotesque poses that seem to represent Tarot cards, Dave learns that Chester 'Smiley' Wimple, the killer who targets anyone he suspects of hurting children, is also in the area. With this surfeit of suspects, finding the real killer won't be easy for Dave especially with a young beautiful new partner to distract him.

The New Iberia Blues is the twenty-second in James Lee Burke's Dave Robichaux series. The mystery genre is often seen as a lesser form to literary fiction - Burke proves once again the error of this view. His books, including this one, are as much an exploration of the human condition as they are cracking good mysteries. His prose is always pitch-perfect, often almost lyrical; his characters aren't just one-dimensional but complex and flawed and almost always sympathetic with back stories that, if not justifying their actions, explain them; the story is well-plotted and, if sometimes it seems to ramble away from the main plotline, it always returns. There is also a sense in the books that killers like Smiley aren't always the worst of the bad guys - sometimes, it's overly ambitious politicians or, in this case, a rich producer with an over-inflated sense of entitlement. For anyone who is a fan of Burke or just enjoys intelligent mysteries, this one's for you.

<i>Thanks to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review</i>

The New Iberia Blues
James Lee Burke
Simon and Schuster
published date 1/8/19

4/5 stars ☆☆☆☆

Summary:
Robicheaux knocks on Cormier’s door, it isn’t to congratulate him on his Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations. Robicheaux has discovered the body of a young woman who’s been crucified, wearing only a small chain on her ankle. She disappeared near Cormier’s Cyrpemort Point estate, and Robicheaux, along with young deputy, Sean McClain, are looking for answers. Neither Cormier nor his enigmatic actor friend Antoine Butterworth are saying much, but Robicheaux knows better.

I had heard rave reviews about this series of mysteries, and short story writers quote his prose as perfection . I found myself rereading sections for the mere beauty of the words: his description of water, the luminosity of the sky, The ending is movie set actiin ready, I felt for his flashbacks worthy of a veteran, those who suffer from PTSD will feel a kinship with the author that is authentic. As this was my first Robicheaux novel I was not lost , I felt like I had been reading since book one a reader could easily pick up the series anywhere. The Louisiana bayou was depicted well, and I had no idea Alafair is his daughter in real life's name..and plug...at the end: she wrote the book "The Wife" ..can't wait to go out and read and see if like father like daughter! The biggest thumbs up was the "character "Smiley" , his determination even after speaking with the angels "who had come to take him home " to kill Wexler was an A+ scene, even then I had no idea what was ahead, the ending was complete surprise. A must read for January, thanks #Netgalley and #simonschuster for my advanced copy for my honest review