The Glass Rainbow: A Dave Robicheaux Novel Review
From the first page of his shattering new novel, James Lee Burke's gorgeous prose enfolds the reader, who cannot help but be enthralled, to the extent that one finds oneself wishing that the book could just go on forever. Or at least that was my own feeling, so completely was I under the author's spell. And when the stunning conclusion does come, that sentiment was only reinforced.
It is nothing new to say that James Lee Burke's writing includes perfectly drawn portraits of even minor characters, as well as lush descriptions of the Louisiana of his and his protagonist's birth. In this case, he also brings to life the history of the area, in its plantation society, pre-Emancipation days, primarily through two of its characters. One is Kermit Abelard, the scion of the wealthy Abelard family, with its historical New Orleans prominence, who has been romancing Dave's adopted daughter, Alafair, as the novel opens. Dave objects to the liaison, mostly because of the large difference in age, as well as his suspicions about the family and its morality, or lack thereof; another aspect is the relationship between Kermit and Robert Weingart, an oft-convicted felon whose part in Kermit's life is of questionable motive and definition. Robert has become a celebrated author as well, and that in turn plays a part in the two men's influence on Alafair, herself an aspiring novelist.
The other old-Louisiana player is Layton Blanchet, a millionaire who hires Clete Purcell, Dave's life-long friend from their days with the New Orleans P.D., now working as a p.i., to find out who his wife, as he suspects, is sleeping with. Clete plays a major part in this book, where we find him going through suicidal and homicidal rages, as indeed Dave does as well.
The tale begins when Dave, a New Iberia sheriff's detective working on his own time after the rape and murder of seven women, all very young, black and poor, visits a penal work gang outside Natchez, Mississippi to interview a man whose young sister is among the victims, and who claims he knows the identity of the killer. When that man is himself murdered, and the body of another young girl is discovered, Dave and Clete decide that since the deaths of young black girls is likely to go uninvestigated if they don't do the investigating themselves, they chart a course which endangers their lives and those of Alafair and Dave's wife, Molly, among others. More killings follow, and motives are obscure at best. And we are told that no matter the jeopardy in which Dave and Clete are placed, as Clete is fond of saying, "the Bobbsey twins from Homicide are forever." Their friendship goes back more than three decades; both men still are haunted by flashbacks from Vietnam; they have both gone from New Orleans patrolmen to detectives, and their loyalty to each other is boundless. Neither is the reader immune to their goodness and charm, and we must profoundly hope that the Bobbsey twins from Homicide do indeed go on forever. Very highly recommended.
The Glass Rainbow: A Dave Robicheaux Novel Feature
- ISBN13: 9781439128299
- Condition: New
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The Glass Rainbow: A Dave Robicheaux Novel Overview
James Lee Burke’s eagerly awaited new novel finds Detective Dave Robicheaux back in New Iberia, Louisiana, and embroiled in the most harrowing and dangerous case of his career. Seven young women in neighboring Jefferson Davis Parish have been brutally murdered. While the crimes have all the telltale signs of a serial killer, the death of Bernadette Latiolais, a high school honor student, doesn’t fit: she is not the kind of hapless and marginalized victim psychopaths usually prey upon. Robicheaux and his best friend, Clete Purcel, confront Herman Stanga, a notorious pimp and crack dealer whom both men despise. When Stanga turns up dead shortly after a fierce beating by Purcel, in front of numerous witnesses, the case takes a nasty turn, and Clete’s career and life are hanging by threads over the abyss.
Adding to Robicheaux’s troubles is the matter of his daughter, Alafair, on leave from Stanford Law to put the finishing touches on her novel. Her literary pursuit has led her into the arms of Kermit Abelard, celebrated novelist and scion of a once prominent Louisiana family whose fortunes are slowly sinking into the corruption of Louisiana’s subculture. Abelard’s association with bestselling ex-convict author Robert Weingart, a man who uses and discards people like Kleenex, causes Robicheaux to fear that Alafair might be destroyed by the man she loves. As his daughter seems to drift away from him, he wonders if he has become a victim of his own paranoia. But as usual, Robicheaux’s instincts are proven correct and he finds himself dealing with a level of evil that is greater than any enemy he has confronted in the past.
Set against the backdrop of an Edenic paradise threatened by pernicious forces, James Lee Burke’s The Glass Rainbow is already being hailed as perhaps the best novel in the Robicheaux series.
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