My Washington Times 'On Crime' Column On James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux Crime Series

The Washington Times published my On Crime column about James Lee Burke and his popular fictional character Dave Robicheaux.

I was pleased to learn that James Lee Burke has a new crime novel coming out in May.

According to his publisher Simon & Schuster, James Lee Burke’s “A Private Cathedral” is his most powerful story. The novel mixes crime, romance, mythology, horror and science fiction, as well as the all-consuming and all-conquering power of love.

“A Private Cathedral” is his 40th book and his 23rd novel featuring Dave Robicheaux, a rugged and principled Cajun and New Iberia, Louisiana Sheriff’s Department detective.

I’ve reviewed several of his novels in these pages, including his last novel, “The New Iberia Blues.” The novel was a sequel to his previous novel, “Robicheaux,” and the upcoming “A Private Cathedral” is the third novel in his trilogy.

In “The New Iberia Blues” Dave Robicheaux visits a Hollywood director who returns to Louisiana to direct a film. Robicheaux knew the director when he was a New Orleans detective and the director, Desmond Cormier, was a street artist. When Robicheaux looked through Cormier’s telescope he sees the horrific sight of a young woman floating in the bay while nailed to a wooden cross. The novel, like all of James Lee Burke’s novels, offers violent conflict, sinister criminals and sad victims. I suspect “A Private Cathedral” will continue in the same vein.  

Although I disagree somewhat with his worldview, I believe the 83-year-old author is one of the best modern crime novelists and his character Dave Robicheaux (pronounced “Row-bih-show”) is one of the best detective characters in crime fiction today. His novels are superbly well-written, and they offer gritty realism with a strong moral tone. The popular series has been translated into nearly every language on the planet.

James Lee Burke is a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America and a two-time recipient of its Edgar Award. He’s also the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Fiction. Born in Houston in 1936, James Lee Burke grew up on the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast. He attended Southwestern Louisiana Institute for two years and graduated with honors from the University of Missouri.

He’s worked a good number of different jobs prior to becoming a full-time novelist. He’s worked as a social worker, an oil man, a newspaper reporter and a teacher, which gives him a wide breadth of knowledge of the human condition, which is evident in his work.

Mr. Burke is passionate about the environment, especially in Louisiana, and the blight of the oppressed. In his novels, he has Dave Robicheaux attempt to right wrongs, defend the innocent and punish the greedy, the crooked and the predators who prey on the innocent. 

You can read the rest of the column below or via the below link:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/mar/31/james-lee-burkes-dave-robicheaux-crime-series-cont/

You can also read my Washington Times review of The New Iberia Blues via the below link:

www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2019/01/my-washington-times-review-of-james-lee.html

And you can read my Washington Times review of Robicheaux via the below link:  

www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2017/12/my-washington-times-review-of-james-lee.html 

My Washington Times Review Of James Lee Burke's 'The New Iberia Blues'

The Washington Times published my review of James Lee Burke’s The New Iberia Blues.

Fans of James Lee Burke’s character Dave Robicheaux are glad that the New Iberia, Louisiana, Cajun detective has returned in “The New Iberia Blues,” a sequel to last year’s “Robicheaux.” They should also be glad to know that Mr. Burke is currently working on the third novel to this trilogy.

In “The New Iberia Blues,” Dave Robicheaux, an elderly but physically active sheriff’s detective, pays a visit to Desmond Cormier, whom he knew in New Orleans when the young man was a street artist with ambitions to become a Hollywood director and Dave Robicheaux was a New Orleans police officer.

“Desmond Cormier’s success story was an improbable one, even among the many self-congratulatory rags-to-riches tales we tell ourselves in the ongoing saga of our green republic, one that is forever changing, yet forever the same, a saga that also includes the graves of Shiloh and cinders from aboriginal villages,” Dave Robicheaux, the novel’s narrator, explains to the reader in the beginning of the crime novel. “That is not meant to be a cynical statement. 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 our own penchant for breaking our heroes on a medieval wheel and revising them later, safely downwind from history.”

Desmond Cormier was raised by his poor grandparents on the Chitimacha Indian Reservation in the back room of a general store on a dirt road before the casino operators came to town. Like his grandparents, he belonged to that group of mixed blood Indians unkindly called redbones, the Cajun detective tells us. A thin and frail boy, he lifted weights and became large and muscular. He later waited tables in the French Quarter and was a street artist when he told Robicheaux that he was going to make movies. When Robicheaux appeared skeptical, Cormier asked the Catholic police officer if he still went to church and Robicheaux replied that he did.

“That means you believe in the things that are on the other side of the physical world. That’s what painting is. That’s what making movies is. You enter a magical world others have no knowledge of,” Cormier said.

While visiting Cormier 25 years later in New Iberia, Robicheaux looks through Cormier’s telescope and sees a young woman floating in the bay on top of a wooden cross. Both Cormier and his sinister houseguest, Antoine Butterworth, deny seeing the girl, but a young sheriff’s deputy confirms what Robicheaux saw.

And the homicide investigation begins, while new bodies tally up the number of ritualistic homicides that may be related to the young woman nailed to the floating cross. 

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jan/31/book-review-the-new-iberia-blues-by-james-lee-burk/