A Stained White Radiance (1992)

Dave Robicheaux finds himself entangled with the Sonnier family, childhood friends whose lives have been unalterably shaped by abusive parents. A bullet shot through a window in the antebellum home of the eldest Sonnier, Weldon, now a successful oilman, propels Dave back into ives he's not sure he should re-enter. As a man whose CIA-influenced past has led to dangerous contemporary commitments, including debts to local mob boss Joey Gouza, Weldon may have put himself in the line of fire. And what of Weldon's links, through his fragile wife, Bama, to a powerful Klansman-turned-politician now running for statewide office - her brother, te telegenic Bobby Earl. It is left to Lyle Sonnier, television evangelist and faith healer, a man with "wavy hair conked in the shape of a gingerbread cake," to fill Dave in on a violent family history with ever-more-visible consequences - a past that intersects with Dave's own.

Burke likes to fool around with sociopathic types. He has one (at leaset) in every novel, and sometimes if the sociopath is such but does not allow society to be harmed, he or she triumphs. It is a weird woul this man this writer, this creator of dark light , creates in each of his books. It is his distinguishing mark: the use of chiaroscuro in literature. ( )

Reading this series in order, the books get better and better. It's a delight to see the growth in both the character and the writer as Burke hit his stride in this series. Five down, over a dozen left that he's written since this one. If they keep improving at this rate, I'll run out of stars to hand out.

This one starts when Dave is called out to investigate a shot fired through the window of an antebellum mansion. Weldon Sonnier, the mansion's owner, is part of a hugely dysfunctional family with a great deal of power in Southern Louisiana. He's also a bit of a shady character. His brother is a televangelist whose brother-in-law is a former Klansman turned politician. His sister is an old flame of Dave's. It's quite a family, and the have some nasty secrets, both personal and "professional." And Dave is drawn into the middle of it all. Throw in some nasty mob-related thugs and the story gets very intense very quickly.

This is a complex tale peopled with well-drawn, multi-dimensional characters. Burke grounds it in a solid sense of place in his beloved Southern Louisiana, a setting which he evokes by appealing to all the senses. (It's no coincidence that I made jambalaya for supper this evening.)

And in the process of telling a whale of a mystery/suspense story, Burke manages to deal with issues of real significance. What more can you ask from a book? ( )

Some things/people never change, especially in the South. While Burke still is gifted, this storyline just wandered around and could have been much more interesting. Instead it was like sitting through Gone with the Wind in a theatre with a lot of noisy people, without any air conditioning or snack bar. ( )

This book felt a lot different from the earlier ones in this series. There was less kick-butting and more detective work, I suppose. Or, as another reviewer said, it's more of a mystery than the earlier books in the series.

I don't know that I liked it as much. I'm not really reading this series because I want an intricate plot (though it was nicely paced). But Dave is probably too old to be a decent kick-butter anyway (I think he says he's 50+).

It was much better in avoiding the environs descriptive tangents, and the use of racial descriptions for every character, but there is a secondary (minor) thread in this story that is racial-political in nature - which I did not enjoy at all. ( )