Pages 1-140
James Lee Burke in gritty New Orleans. Dave Robicheaux, unhappy at the slapdash way the murder of a black prostitute is handled, gets himself involved in a much more serious case than he imagined. Nicaragua, Sandinistas, drug money, ATF agents (Fitzpatrick), sadists, a sketchy partner (Cletus)--lots going on, and all of it handled deftly. Burke is not your spare writer. He goes for broke with everything--plot, character, language, setting. I generally prefer the sparse writing style, but you've got to admire the way Burke puts it all out there: "This is what I've got; all of it. I'm not hiding with implied anything."
On tourists: "Families strolled down Bourbon Street, cameras hanging from their necks, as though they were on a visit to the zoo."
Exchange with bad guy: "I'm the guy you never thought you'd see, just a vague figure in your mind you could laugh about getting snuffed. I've sort of showed up like a bad dream, haven't I?"
Father on his dead daughter: What you gonna do when they nineteen? Ain't no listenin', not when she got white men's money, drive a big car down here from New Orleans, telling me she gonna move us up North, her. Little girl that still eat cush-cush gonna outsmart the white mens, her, move her old nigger daddy up to New York. What she done they got to kill her for.
Kansas: "the drone of cicadas on a summer evening. It was also a country people with religious fanatics, prohibitionists, and right-wing simpletons, and on the other side of the equation were the anti-nukers and dozens of vigilant peace groups. (Kansas) sounded like an open-air mental asylum."
James Lee Burke in gritty New Orleans. Dave Robicheaux, unhappy at the slapdash way the murder of a black prostitute is handled, gets himself involved in a much more serious case than he imagined. Nicaragua, Sandinistas, drug money, ATF agents (Fitzpatrick), sadists, a sketchy partner (Cletus)--lots going on, and all of it handled deftly. Burke is not your spare writer. He goes for broke with everything--plot, character, language, setting. I generally prefer the sparse writing style, but you've got to admire the way Burke puts it all out there: "This is what I've got; all of it. I'm not hiding with implied anything."
On tourists: "Families strolled down Bourbon Street, cameras hanging from their necks, as though they were on a visit to the zoo."
Exchange with bad guy: "I'm the guy you never thought you'd see, just a vague figure in your mind you could laugh about getting snuffed. I've sort of showed up like a bad dream, haven't I?"
Father on his dead daughter: What you gonna do when they nineteen? Ain't no listenin', not when she got white men's money, drive a big car down here from New Orleans, telling me she gonna move us up North, her. Little girl that still eat cush-cush gonna outsmart the white mens, her, move her old nigger daddy up to New York. What she done they got to kill her for.
Kansas: "the drone of cicadas on a summer evening. It was also a country people with religious fanatics, prohibitionists, and right-wing simpletons, and on the other side of the equation were the anti-nukers and dozens of vigilant peace groups. (Kansas) sounded like an open-air mental asylum."
Comments
Post a Comment