In every one of the Dave Robicheaux novels the New Iberia Louisiana detective struggles with criminals and his own inner issues. Alcoholism is a major character in all of James Lee Burke's books. Dave goes to AA meetings and faithfully follows the 12 steps but he is haunted by his past, especially his father's death in a drilling platform accident and his mother's abandonment of the family. In Purple Cane Road Detective Robicheaux learns the details of his mother's disappearance and discovers that she was murdered. While Dave struggles to stay sober his friend Clete has been drinking more and more. Clete's excessive drinking is getting worse and there isn't much Dave can do about it. Bootsie, Dave's wife, is bothered by Dave's moodiness and starts attending Alanon herself. Meanwhile their daughter has a stalker who may be a contract killer. Corruption in high places seems to be linked with this possible contract killer and a woman on death row whose execution date is coming up. While looking into the case of the woman on death row Dave unearths more corruption involving the Attorney General of the state. Could she be somehow connected to his mother's murder thirty years ago. Dave goes to the house on Purple Cane Road and finds something that could open up an old case. To avoid spoiling a surprise I will stop here. This book is very dark and perhaps depressing. Enjoy. ( )

Dave Robicheaux tracks cops who killed his mother

Dave Robicheaux has spent his life confronting the age-old adage that the sins of the father pass onto the son. But what has his mother's legacy left him? Dead to him since youth, Mae Guillory has been shuttered away in the deep recesses of Dave's mind. He's lived with the fact that he would never really know what happened to the woman who left him to the devices of his whiskey-driven father. But deep down, he still feels the loss of his mother and knows the infinite series of disappointments in her life could not have come to a good end.

While helping out an old friend, Dave is stunned when a pimp looks at him sideways and asks him if he is Mae Guillory's boy, the whore a bunch of cops murdered 30 years ago. The pimp goes on to insinuate that the cops who dumped her body in the bayou were on the take and continue to thrive in the New Orleans area.

Dave's search for his mother's killers leads him to the darker places in his past and solving this case teaches him what it means to be his mother's son ( )

I'm still not fully convinced I like Burke's books but this was ok. I started weak (from my point of view) but ended better. ( )

Probably one of the better entries in the Dave Robicheaux series; I've read eight of its ten predecessors, and I'd say this one comes in second to A Stained White Radiance. Unlike some of the Robicheaux stories, the plot is comprehensible and ties itself up neatly; the villains are believable; and the hero, though constantly in danger of going over the edge, manages (with the help of his friends) to keep from messing up his own life too distressingly. Am I damning with faint praise? I admit I'm getting weary of the formula, and would like to see Dave's family, if not Dave, have the occasional shot at a carefree day or two. And a little humor would go a long way. But let's not forget the unique virtues that Burke brings the reader, which include an unusual insight into the human flaws of ordinary and not-so-ordinary people, an unmatched ability to describe the peculiar natural environment of southern Louisiana, and at the root of it all, a deep love for human beings, however bad a few of them may be. ( )