In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead (Dave Robicheaux) (original 1993; edition 2011)

This story, written in 1996, shows the compassionate and spiritual side of Det. Dave Robicheaux of the New Iberia, sheriff's department.

As the story opens, there has been a murder and mutilation of a nineteen-year-old prostitute. Later, Dave tells the sheriff, he's seen the body and he won't stop the investigation until her killer is brought to justice.

We also see a childhood friend of Dave's return to New Iberia. This man, Julie Balboni, is now with the mob and wants to invest into a movie being shot in the area about the Civil War.

The sheriff wants Dave to encourage Julie and his mob followers to leave the area.

As the movie is being made, Dave meets the star, Elwood Sykes who has a problem with alcohol and Dave's attempt to help Elwood is an interesting aspect of the story.

Another unique part of this story is that there are times when Old Civil War figures appear to Dave to give words of philosophy or advice.

The story is well written as is the setting and once again, James Lee Burke has demonstrated why Dave Robicheaux is one of the most popular characters in detective fiction. ( )

I really liked The Neon Rain, the first Robicheaux novel, but this one, with its supernatural element, did not quite work for me. Burke is clearly doing something ambitious and historically relevant to the modern south in this novel, but I could not suspend disbelief enough. And I'm into supernatural stuff. ( )

In my ongoing reading of the Dave Robicheaux series -- all of them, in order this time -- I've been looking forward to re-reading this installment of the series, which I read for the first time when it was new. The final third of the book, I simply read straight through and refused to put it down for something so mundane as going to bed at a reasonable hour. I was caught up in the mystery -- or mysteries. There are several -- that of a lynching which Dave witnessed as a youth, the remains of which have finally surfaced on the bayou; that of the murder of at least two prostitutes in modern-day New Iberia and environs; that of the phantoms Dave and those around him encounter. Ghosts? Dreams? Delusions? Hallucinations? All of the above? Burke is careful not to explain everything, but leaves room to explain away enough that the "ghost story" doesn't dominate the crime story, even while it illuminates issues involved. This is a great book -- gritty and grisly and beautiful by turns, giving lots of room for thought. ( )

I did enjoy this book very much - the bayou environment is not something I am familiar with, so it lends an air of fantastic genre to the novel. What's more, the virtual presence of a Confederate ghost does remind me of the short fictions of Ambrose Bierce (there usually are some uncanny elements in a damaged post-civil war environment). The characters are brought to the foreground, they are outlined against a quiet, Louisiana, background, and they seem more alive than what it would be for normal characters, as if they were the ones that mattered, not the plot. In any case, this book is a very good one, and I'd recommend it to anyone wanting to read about bayous and villains, or to have a taste of Ambrose Bierce's fantastic atmosphere. ( )

This was given to me by a friend and i said to myself: "sure. like i will find someone who writes as good and as sucks me in as well as JDM. Well, this guy Burke does it, at least with the Devereux character. Maybe it's because my blood is french and indian, and i speak french, and I love the cajun music and cooking, and of the four kinds of terrain, i like the swamp the best, but no, it's more than that. i shall read more of his work. ( )