Product Details

• Published on: 2006-08
• Format: Large Print
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 632 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Drawing on classical antecedents, bestseller Burke peoples his 15th Dave Robicheaux novel (after 2004's Crusader's Cross) with his usual assortment of near mythic characters, demonstrating how our everyday lives are beset with age-old, universal dilemmas. New Iberia, La., detective Dave Robicheaux, for whom redemption has become a lifelong pursuit, suits up once again to tilt against villains both real and in his own troubled psyche. Twenty-five years earlier, the young alcohol-soaked cop witnessed his friend and fellow Vietnam vet, Dallas Klein, executed by a group of cold-blooded thugs. He was unable to intercede because he was plastered. Now, a young grifter who may be the victim's daughter, Trish Klein, has appeared in New Iberia, passing counterfeit money and baiting Whitey Bruxal, the aging mobster responsible for Dallas's death. Meanwhile, Dave investigates the apparent suicide of pretty young co-ed Yvonne Darbonne. Are the two cases linked? Dave thinks so, and he enlists longtime loose-cannon sidekick Clete Purcel to prove it. With peerless naturalistic descriptions and lush, metaphysical imagery, Burke creates another challenging morality play for his flawed, everyman hero. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From AudioFile
Louisiana Sheriff's Deputy Dave Robicheaux is still guilt-ridden for having failed to save Dallas Klein's life in Florida twenty-five years earlier. When Dallas's daughter appears, grown-up and gorgeous, and shows an interest in Dave's best friend, hard-drinking, down-at-the-heels Clete Purcel, Dave becomes suspicious of her motives. Cons, scams, racial prejudice, dubious sexuality, drugs, and death take the lead in this fourteenth Robicheaux psychological suspense. Will Patton's honeyed Louisiana drawl lures listeners into Robicheaux's angst. Patton's sweet talk creates some of the most sinister, clever women around, and he's chilling as some of the iciest villains in popular fiction. James Lee Burke's subtle character insights, gritty descriptions, and intricate plotting combine with Patton's seductive performance to leave listeners longing for more. S.J.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Booklist
In James Lee Burke's novels, the past in never farther away than the ripples on the bayou outside Dave Robicheaux's New Iberia, Louisiana, home. This time it's Robicheaux's dark personal history--when the detective "was still going steady with Jim Beam straight up and a beer back"--that interferes with the tranquil present for newly married Dave. When Trish Klein turns up in New Iberia, it doesn't take long for Robicheaux to realize she is the daughter of his old friend, Dallas, who died in an armored-car robbery that Dave witnessed but was too drunk to stop. To make amends, Robicheaux must solve the several interconnected murders that track back to the man behind the armored-car hit. Everything that makes this series so compelling--the elegiac, seductively lyrical prose; the complex character of Robicheaux; the lovingly evoked bayou setting-- is here in abundance, and if it doesn't galvanize into something quite as special as the last episode, Crusader's Cross (2005), that's only because we've come to expect so much from this series. The fact remains that no serious reader of hard-boiled fiction should ever miss a moment of Dave Robicheaux in action. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Harry Bosch's psychological baggage ain't got nothin' on Dave Robicheaux!
Twenty-five years ago, deep in his cups with a keg's worth of beer and accompanying chasers under his belt, an alcoholic Dave Robicheaux witnessed the gangland execution of his friend, Dallas Klein. Swearing off the sauce and finding a good woman who accepts and loves him for what he is, Robicheaux has spent the remainder of his life in recovery attempting to live down that unforgivable inability to stand and help his friend so long ago. What most rankles Robicheaux is that he is certain of the assassin's identity - Whitey Bruxal, a mobster with a lengthy well-documented gangland jacket - but, with no proof, he is unable to act on the knowledge!

Now, out of nowhere, Dallas Klein's daughter, Trish Klein appears in town. In a set-up remarkably similar to Baldacci's Camel Club story of Annabelle Conroy's vendetta against mobster Jerry Bagger (both were published in 2006 so it's hard to say who beat whom to that plot-line punch), it looks like she's gunning for revenge against her father's murderer. Of course, as with any police procedural or psychological thriller worth its salt, James Lee Burke has expertly upped the ante with multiple plot lines that weave in and out of one another throughout the novel - a young girl's suicide after a drunken fraternity debauch and a brutal gang rape; the hit-and-run death of an aging drifter that, on the evidence of the post-mortem, has much more sinister overtones; and the complex life of the local black dope dealer.

Although this is the apparently the 14th novel in which Burke has placed Robicheaux on center stage, this is the first time I've had the pleasure of sampling Burke's craftsmanship. And what an experience that was - his depiction of both the psychological mindscape and the physical landscape of a storm torn, poverty stricken Louisiana is outstanding. Any page opened at random will reveal Burke's masterful command of the language and his ability to create the most jarring and colourful metaphors and similes:

"The recycled air was like cigarette smoke that had been trapped for days in a refrigerator full of spoiled cheese."

On dealing with his own inner demons, for example:

"But the succubus I had tried to exorcise by marrying a woman of peace still held title to my soul. I saw the room distort and the faces of the people around me turn into Grecian masks, and I heard a sound in my ears like the steel tracks of armored vehicles wending their way across an unforgiving land."

The dialogue was creative, realistic, down to earth with a full, rich vocabulary of appropriate street lingo. The depth of characterization was wonderful (even though I was stepping into Robicheaux's world 13 novels after he was first created). The only "but" for me was the tortuous, almost Byzantine complexity of the plot. Don't let your attention drift or you may not find your way back.

I'll be hunting the second hand book stores for the Robicheaux canon starting from the beginning tomorrow.

Highly recommended.

Paul Weiss

Past and Present Collide Explosively in New Iberia

Louisiana has always been a friendly host for those who wanted to run illegal activities, whether slots, cribs or powder. In Pegasus Descending, James Lee Burke takes his distinguished Dave Robicheaux series into a close look at what it's like in Louisiana when the crooks can operate above-ground with their shiny new casinos. As usual, it seems like making things legal just makes it worse for everyone else. What is a poor, but honest, detective in New Iberia to do about it? As usual, Robicheaux will not rest until the creatures of darkness have been brought down.

More than most stories in the series, Pegasus Descending is mostly a character study of Dave. With the exception of his friend and former NOPD Homicide partner, Clete Purcel, the other characters display little depth, development or progress in the story.

Don't get me wrong. There's plenty going on, but that action is mostly a backdrop for us to better understand Dave's thoughts, memories and feelings. He's a complex character and becomes even more so in this story . . . particularly when confronted with mistakes he made because of being too trusting.

As a result, Dave (and readers) come to see that although there are some real monsters out there, most of the non-monsters are pretty complicated in their motives, actions and feelings. That was the story's strength, that sense of humility that develops slowly . . . like a well cooked gumbo.

When Dave was still a drunk, a training assignment took him to Florida. Mr. Burke captures this period beautifully in this phrase that opens the book, "In the early 1980s, when I was going study with Jim Beam straight-up with a beer back . . . ." While in Florida, Dave became friends with Dallas Klein, a Vietnam vet who had a gambling problem that got him into trouble with the bookies. That vulnerability led to a nightmare for Dave as he watched Dallas be gunned down during an inside-job heist . . . but Dave was too drunk to do anything about it.

Back to the present, Dave's daughter is all grown-up and hunting for something in Louisiana . . . something that may be connected to Dave's death. But why is a woman now worth millions passing stolen c-notes and shop lifting purses? Why is she hanging out with the apparent scum of the earth as her entourage?

More urgently, a young woman about to enter college unexpectedly kills herself . . . deeply shocking her father and boy friend. Is it really a suicide? If yes, why? If not, who did it?

In the background, Dave is also trying to clear what seems to be a hit-and-run homicide of a man who was probably killed nine months before. There's not much left of him, but the skeleton seems to tell a strange tale. How did he really die?

A local drug dealer, Monarch Little, makes the acquaintance of two sons of casino owners outside of a McDonald's. The conflict that follows creates a cascade of antipathy that threatens to swamp more than one of them. From Dave's point of view, it's all the more interesting because one of the sons is the boyfriend of the apparent suicide. The other is the son of the man who probably ordered Dave killed.

It's hard to sleep, hard to eat, hard to concentrate when there's that much animosity and conflict going on. Like a bonfire doused with gasoline, the ignition seems destined for quite a large explosion.

This is one story where you're probably not going to see what's coming next. As a result, you'll find the ever-faster pace and the remarkable confrontations to be quite enthralling.

As always, Louisiana's unique geography and history play powerful roles in setting the tone of this story in unforgettable ways. Louisiana is an even more pervasive character than Dave, the narrator, is.

For me, the story wandered a bit. There's much too much about the FBI, the local district attorney, threats from the cops to take in Clete and various other side stories that just detract from what could have been a very spare and powerful story. That material could have been used better to build up Dave's relationship with his wife, Molly, and to explain more about his too-trusting attitude towards some people.

I also felt like the plot was a little contrived. There were too many connections from too many directions for me to take it seriously. I always felt like I was reading a well-written novel rather than identifying with a character in the story so much that I felt like I was living the experience.