In New Iberia, Louisiana, memories are long and dangerous, and the past and present are seldom easy to untangle. Homicide investigator Dave Robicheaux is trying to help Letty Labiche, a New Iberia girl on death row for killing the man who molested her and her sister as children, when chance brings him to Zipper Clum, a pimp and pornographer who recognizes Robicheaux secondhand through a 30-year haze: "Robicheaux, your mama's name was Mae.... Wait, it was Guillory before she married. That was the name she went by ... Mae Guillory. But she was your mama," he said.

"What?" I said.

He wet his lips uncertainly.

"She dealt cards and still hooked a little bit. Behind a club in Lafourche Parish. This was maybe 1966 or '67," he said.

Clete's eyes were fixed on my face. "You're in a dangerous area, sperm breath," he said to Zipper.

"They held her down in a mud puddle. They drowned her," Zipper said. To Robicheaux, whose memories of the fun-loving Mae are few and bittersweet, the news comes like a bolt of lightning. Though she abandoned him to the uncertain mercies of a violent, alcoholic father, he loved her, and his desire to find her killers--cops in the pay of the Giacano crime family, according to Clum--is instantaneous and deeply felt. Unfortunately, Zipper Clum meets the wrong end of a .25 automatic soon after his electrifying announcement, but his conversation with his killer is recorded--and Mae Guillory's name comes up again.

The winding trail of evidence connected to both Letty Labiche and Mae Guillory leads Robicheaux almost immediately to Jim Gable, the New Orleans Police Department's liaison with city hall, whose position has afforded him a number of less-than-legal advantages. Gable also happens to be an ex-lover of Robicheaux's wife, Bootsie--formerly the widow of Ralph Giacano. From there the web of connections grows ever wider, and (not surprisingly) incriminates those in high places. These include the state attorney general, a woman who, if photographic evidence is to be trusted, was once friendly with the Labiches' parents, who were known procurers.

But if Purple Cane Road has its share of corrupt powermongers, it's also filled with beautifully rounded characters, like piano-playing governor Belmont Pugh and hit man Johnny Remeta, whose personality slowly begins to unravel as he gets closer to Robicheaux's daughter. The plot converges seamlessly to its climax--the true story of what happened to Mae Robicheaux--as James Lee Burke's trademark of uncompromising justice is brought to fruition. Like Burke's other Robicheaux novels, Purple Cane Road offers a solidly satisfying piece in the picture of a complex hero. --Barrie Trinkle


From Publishers Weekly
HAfter the relatively lightweight Sunset Limited (1998), Cajun cop Dave Robicheaux returns in a powerhouse of a thriller that shows Burke writing near the peak of his form. Robicheaux faces his most personal case yet, when a pimp puts him on the trail of the truth behind his mother's long-ago disappearance. Meanwhile, he uncovers new evidence in the case of death-row inmate Letty Labiche, who took a mattock to the man who molested her as a child, state executioner Vachel Carmouche. Burke parades the usual cast of grotesques: feckless Louisiana governor Belmont Pugh; cold-blooded attorney general Connie Deshotel; sleazy police liaison officer Jim Gable, who "keeps the head of a Vietnamese soldier in a jar of chemicals"; and psychopathic hit man Johnny Remata, who acts as all-around avenging angel. Wife Bootsie's having had a fling with Gable drives Robicheaux into a jealous fury more than once, while daughter Alafair's flirtation with Johnny raises the temperature even higher. Old buddy Clete Purcell doesn't have a lot to do, other than to contribute to the general mayhem. Once Robicheaux learns that his mother fell afoul of a couple of New Orleans cops in the pay of the Giacano crime family, it's a simple matter of identifying the guilty pair and bringing them to justiceDor is it? Burke winds up an often convoluted and gratuitously violent plot with a dynamite ending that will leave readers feeling truly satisfied, if a bit shell-shocked. Major ad/promo; author tour. (Aug.) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Maintaining freshness in a lengthy series may be difficult, but Burke deftly handles this challenge with his 11th entry featuring Dave Robicheaux, police detective and ordinary hero. During a shakedown, a local pimp informs Dave that he has knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the death of Dave's mother only to wind up murdered himself soon after. Having spent most of his life with his mother's death shrouded in mystery, Dave finally has an opportunity to learn of her end. To accomplish this, however, he must unravel a conspiracy to conceal the events of that fateful night, one involving several New Orleans cops, a conniving state attorney general, and a genius psychopath. More importantly, he must deal with the internal darkness exposed during his search and ultimately with what it means to be his mother's son. Burke is in top form, his words reading like poetry, his vivid descriptions effortlessly transporting the reader to Southern Louisiana. A superb and satisfying work showcasing one of the truly great mystery writers of our generation.-DCraig L. Shufelt, Gladwin Cty. Lib., MI Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
Dave Robicheaux is back. If you've never read James Lee Burke, you may be a bit lost. Dave is a character with a history--and it's that history, uncovering the circumstances surrounding the death of a mother he barely knew, that gets him into dangerous waters yet again. As Dave is a little self-absorbed and maudlin, this might be a better choice for the true fan. What a James Lee Burke book has in spades is the atmosphere of bayous, barbeque, and bluegrass. Nick Sullivan steeps his reading in quirky accents and whiskeyed drawls. Each character is easily discernible and fresh. Through a myriad of bit players and convoluted plot twists he offers a thoughtful and entertaining interpretation. D.G. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
Throughout Burke's long-running and widely acclaimed Dave Robicheaux series, the melancholy hero has defended the virtues of his vanishing Cajun way of life against the neon seductions of the modern urban world. Lately, though, Burke has played a fascinating variation on this theme. In the previous Robicheaux novel, Sunset Limited (1998), and now in this latest installment, the past itself has become suspect. There is great sadness in Robicheaux's personal history--the breakup of his parents' marriage, the death of his father in an oil-rig accident, the disappearance of his mother--but one of Dave's anchors in the stormy seas of his life has always been his abiding respect for his parents' fierce independence and unflinching integrity. Now a New Orleans lowlife has let it slip that Robicheaux's mother was a whore in her last days, before being killed by gangsters: "My mother's memory, the sad respect I always had for her, had been stolen from me." As Robicheaux attempts to reconstruct his mother's life and disprove the lowlife's allegations, the trail leads, as it nearly always does in a Burke novel, to powerful politicians with bent psyches and secret lives. This time, though, the stakes are higher, and Robicheaux's rage threatens to bring more grief down upon his loved ones. Even Dave's sidekick, Clete Purcell, never known for his caution, counsels restraint: "What you want is God's permission to paint the trees with bad guys. That ain't going to happen, big mon." Perhaps more so than any of his peers, Burke has kept his series alive by skillfully tweaking his formula just enough to add interest but never so much as to lose its essence. Robicheaux battling the past instead of the present is only the latest example of Burke's continuing ability to mix the fresh with the familiar in just the right way. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


From Kirkus Reviews
Another round of violence in New Iberia Parish leads sheriff's investigator Dave Robicheaux (Sunset Limited, 1998, etc.) to reopen the darkest mystery he's ever faced: the murder of his mother. The door into his past opens with startling suddenness. Letty Labiche has almost run through the legal obstacles keeping her from the death house for killing abusive ex-cop executioner Vachel Carmouche eight years ago when Dave learns that Little Face Dautrieve, a coke hooker from New Iberia, has been saving newspaper clippings on the case for her pimp, Zipper Clum. Braced by Dave and his friend Clete Purcel, a New Orleans shamus, Zipper blurts out the news that Mae Guillory, the mother who left Dave's father years before, had been drowned by a pair of cops back in 1967. The revelation acts like a starting gun for Dave--and for melancholy, hyperactive out-of-town trigger-man Johnny Remeta, whose killing of Zipper is only the first in a string of half a dozen new murders. Politely insisting that Dave's just like him, Remeta appoints himself Dave's guardian angel. Dave would love to see this sensitive killer dead before he ingratiates himself too deeply with Dave's teenaged daughter Alafair. But he needs every bit of Remeta's despised help, because his no-fists-barred attitude toward the cops will end by antagonizing every law officer in Louisiana, from New Orleans Vice cop Don Ritter and powerful City Hall insider Jim Gable, whom Zipper insisted had offered to let Little Face skate in return for regular sex for both of them, to state Attorney General Connie Deshotel, as Dave tears through the ranks looking for Mae's murderers.Though the links among felonies can be insultingly casual, and the mystery is no more mysterious than a ritual sacrifice, Burke's powerfully evoked world shows why the past, as Faulkner said, not only isn't dead; it isn't even past.Literary Guild selection/Mystery Guild main selection -- Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
August 2000

Louisiana detective Dave Robicheaux has spent his life confronting the old adage that the sins of the father are the sins of the son. But what of his mother's legacy? The specter of Robicheaux's mother, Mae Guillory — dead since his youth — is hidden deep in the recesses of his mind. When a notorious pimp refers to her as the whore some cops on the take murdered and then dumped in the bayou 30 years ago, the detective is not only shocked but determined to arrive at the truth. His heated search for his mother's killers leads him to the most soiled places in his own past — teaching him what it means to be his mother's son. Read more about James Lee Burke's most suspenseful novel yet in this Barnes & Noble.com review.

The Return of Dave Robicheaux

The past, always a significant element in James Lee Burke's fiction, is particularly present in Purple Cane Road, the 11th entry in the remarkable — and remarkably consistent — Dave Robicheaux series. This time out, Burke places Robicheaux — his troubled, violence-prone Cajun detective — at the center of two very different homicide investigations, each of which is rooted in the events of a traumatic past. One concerns the controversial murder of Vachel Carmouche, former executioner for the state of Louisiana. The other concerns an older — and much more personal — event: the 1967 murder of the former May Guillory, Dave Robicheaux's mother.

The novel begins just weeks beforethescheduled execution of Letty Labiche, a young mulatto woman convicted of the murder — and sexual mutilation — of Vachel Carmouche, known throughout the state as "the electrician." Convinced that Letty and her twin sister, Passion, had been systematically abused by Carmouche, Robicheaux embarks on an independent investigation, searching for anything that might contribute to Letty's defense. Along the way, he meets and interrogates a New Orleans pimp named Zipper Clum, who blindsides Robicheaux with his casual, unexpected remarks regarding May Guillory's murder.

According to Zipper Clum, May — who walked out on her alcoholic husband while Dave was very young — was a part-time card dealer and part-time prostitute who accidentally witnessed a gangland-style murder and was murdered in turn by an unidentified pair of New Orleans policemen. Shortly after his interview with Robicheaux, Zipper is himself murdered, shot to death before he can offer any further clues. Convinced that the story is at least partially true, Robicheaux sets out on an obsessive search for the answer to a 30-year-old mystery.

From that point forward, Purple Cane Road follows Robicheaux's progress as he sifts through the detritus of his mother's life and death, following a trail of corruption that leads backward in time from the political machinations of the present day to the mob-dominated world of 1960s New Orleans. His investigation proceeds with typical single-mindedness and brings him into contact with a vividly described gallery of Louisiana lowlifes. Included among them are Cora Gable, a faded, alcoholic former movie star; Jim Gable, a corrupt ex-cop who keeps the severed head of a Vietcong soldier in a jar in his office; Connie Deshotel, a powerful political figure with a questionable past; and Johnny Remeta, a young hit man with a genius-level IQ, a history of emotional disorders, and a troublesome attraction to Robicheaux's adopted daughter, Alafair.

Robicheaux's search for his mother's killers alternates with his search for the full truth behind Vachel Carmouche's murder. The result is a crowded, rather shapeless narrative that is occasionally difficult to follow but is still vital, moving, and beautifully composed. Sentence for sentence, James Lee Burke is arguably the finest stylist in contemporary crime fiction. No one writing today can match the sheer descriptive power of his prose. No one else evokes the beauty and squalor of the physical world with anything like his passion, clarity, and precision. In Burke's hands, the Louisiana landscape becomes a palpable presence, the perfect backdrop for his highly charged dramas of love, death, and redemption.

But the real heart of Purple Cane Road is, as always, Dave Robicheaux. From his first appearance (in 1987's The Neon Rain), it was clear that Robicheaux was a unique creation, a wonderfully complex character whose best qualities — courage, decency, a limitless capacity for love and loyalty — are constantly at war with his darker, more self-destructive side, which manifests itself in his recurring sense of spiritual emptiness and in his propensity for violence and alcoholic excess. Robicheaux's struggles with his own inner demons are as real and compelling as his external struggles with the representatives of a corrupt, deteriorating society, and they give these books an uncommon degree of emotional richness and psychological depth. If you haven't read the Robicheaux series — or anything else by James Lee Burke — you're missing something special. From The Neon Rain through Purple Cane Road, these are viscerally exciting novels that also constitute an ongoing, constantly deepening portrait of a soul — and a nation — in crisis. I cannot recommend them highly enough.

—Bill Sheehan

Bill Sheehan reviews horror, suspense, and science fiction for Cemetery Dance, The New York Review of Science Fiction, and other publications. His book-length critical study of the fiction of Peter Straub, At the Foot of the Story Tree, has just been published by Subterranean Press (www.subterraneanpress.com).

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Dave Robicheaux has spent his life confronting the age-old adage that the sins of the father pass on to the son. But what was his mother's legacy? Dead to him since his youth, Mae Guillory has been shuttered away in the deep recesses of Robicheaux's mind. He's lived with the fact that he would never really know what happened to the woman who left him to the devices of a whiskey-driven father. But deep down, Dave still feels the loss of his mother and knows that the infinite series of disappointments in her life could not have come to a good end." "While helping out an old friend, Dave is stunned when a pimp looks at him sideways and asks if he is the son of Mae Guillory, the whore a bunch of cops murdered thirty years ago. Her body was dumped in the bayou bordering Purple Cane Road, and the cops who left her there are still on the job." "Dave's search for his mother's killers leads him to the darker places in his past, and solving this case teaches him what it means to be his mother's son.

FROM THE CRITICS

Barnes & Noble Guide to New Fiction

In this "wildly ambitious" Dave Robicheaux novel, chock-full of "local Louisiana color," Dave's "long, twisted" search for his mother's killers leads him to the darker places in his own past and teaches him what it truly means to be his mother's son. "Vintage Burke." "Begs comparison with Faulkner and Chandler." "I'd rate it a 5 beignets. Couldn't put it down - a must read." But ratings were lowered by some who felt it was "hard to follow."

Publishers Weekly

HAfter the relatively lightweight Sunset Limited (1998), Cajun cop Dave Robicheaux returns in a powerhouse of a thriller that shows Burke writing near the peak of his form. Robicheaux faces his most personal case yet, when a pimp puts him on the trail of the truth behind his mother's long-ago disappearance. Meanwhile, he uncovers new evidence in the case of death-row inmate Letty Labiche, who took a mattock to the man who molested her as a child, state executioner Vachel Carmouche. Burke parades the usual cast of grotesques: feckless Louisiana governor Belmont Pugh; cold-blooded attorney general Connie Deshotel; sleazy police liaison officer Jim Gable, who "keeps the head of a Vietnamese soldier in a jar of chemicals"; and psychopathic hit man Johnny Remata, who acts as all-around avenging angel. Wife Bootsie's having had a fling with Gable drives Robicheaux into a jealous fury more than once, while daughter Alafair's flirtation with Johnny raises the temperature even higher. Old buddy Clete Purcell doesn't have a lot to do, other than to contribute to the general mayhem. Once Robicheaux learns that his mother fell afoul of a couple of New Orleans cops in the pay of the Giacano crime family, it's a simple matter of identifying the guilty pair and bringing them to justice--or is it? Burke winds up an often convoluted and gratuitously violent plot with a dynamite ending that will leave readers feeling truly satisfied, if a bit shell-shocked. Major ad/promo; author tour. (Aug.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Burke weaves a poetic impression of the bayou scenery of south Louisiana and peoples this paradise with as villainous a cast as one could find in any true-crime thriller. Dave Robicheaux, a recovering alcoholic working in the Sheriff's department of New Iberia Parish, in the course of a routine arrest is recognized by the criminal. Dave is a very human and flawed hero who is working to try to bring justice to a violent world and perhaps, at the same time, a little peace to his tortured soul. Read by Nick Sullivan, this is an action-packed book; its violence is often graphic, but the story is compelling. Sure to be a hit with Burke's many fans, this story, the 11th in the series, is a must for all public libraries. Theresa Connors, Arkansas Tech Univ., Russellville Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

AudioFile - AudioFile Review

In Burke's latest mystery, lawman Dave Robicheaux searches for answers to his mother's death thirty years earlier. While the title refers to a road along the bayou, Dave's quest reveals the fascinatingly purpled bruise of the rough underside of crime and corruption of south Louisiana. Will Patton brilliantly portrays the succession of cops, thieves, and politicians with the perfect mix of violent intent (or action) and intriguing character. How can he make these bad guys so interesting? Patton has honed these characters, though Burke also introduces new ones in each of the 10 other Robicheaux stories. The abridgment is taut, and the five-hour length allows a more coherent story. Patton just excels. He uses the languid, descriptive prose to capture the colors and scents as they come across the bayou. R.F.W. Winner of AUDIOFILE Earphones Award. ￯﾿ﾽ AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine

Read by Will Patton

Internet Book Watch - Internet Book Watch