Staff Pick
Nobody can bring the sights and flavors of Louisiana to mind quite like James Lee Burke. The incredibly steadfast Detective Robicheaux will guide us through another mystery, but this particular novel contains quite a bit of the supernatural. There is always a little something for everyone in James Lee Burke's novels, and I suspect this one will bring a few more followers to the fold. Recommended By Corie K-B., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
After finding himself
caught up in one of Louisiana's oldest and bloodiest family rivalries,
Detective Dave Robicheaux must battle the most terrifying adversary he
has ever encountered: a time-traveling superhuman assassin.
The Shondell and Balangie families are longtime enemies in the
New Iberia criminal underworld and show each other no mercy. Yet their
youngest heirs, Johnny Shondell and Isolde Balangie, rock and
roll-musician teenagers with magical voices, have fallen in love and run
away after Isolde was given as a sex slave to Johnny's uncle.
As he seeks to uncover why, Detective Dave Robicheaux gets too
close to both Isolde's mother and the mistress of her father, a venomous
New Orleans mafioso whose jealousy has no bounds. In retribution, he
hires a mysterious assassin to go after Robicheaux and his longtime
partner, Clete Purcel. This hitman is unlike any the "Bobbsey Twins from
Homicide" have ever faced. He has the ability to induce horrifying
hallucinations and travels on a menacing ghost ship that materializes
without warning. In order to defeat him and rescue Johnny and Isolde,
Robicheaux will have to overcome the demons that have tormented him
throughout his adult life — alcoholism, specters from combat in Vietnam,
and painful memories of women to whom he opened his heart only to see
killed.
A Private Cathedral, James Lee Burke's fortieth book, is his most
powerful tale, one that will captivate readers — mixing crime, romance,
mythology, horror, and science fiction to produce a thrilling story
about the all-consuming, all-conquering power of love.
Review
"An imaginative blend of crime and other genres, Burke's existential drama is both exquisitely executed and profoundly moving." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Review
"[A]ll-enveloping mix of horror and crime" Booklist (Starred Review)
Review
"Burke has concocted his
usual gumbo of thrills and chills, stirred it with gusto and seasoned it
with plenty of local superstition and rumor. What makes these books so
enduring (this is the 23rd Robicheaux novel) and the storytelling so
seductive is that Burke has the voice to do justice to the region's
ancient curses and its modern crimes."
Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review
About the Author
James Lee Burke is a
New York Times bestselling author, two-time winner of the Edgar
Award, and the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts
in Fiction. He's authored forty novels and two short story
collections. He lives in Missoula, Montana.