A Stained White Radiance

Dave Robicheaux’ history is deep; impossible to plumb the final sygian chasms. And, so the figures who’ve shaped him resurface with each new narrative, carrying all the muck and detritus of his early years with them. Not to mention, he seems to have catted around quite a bit, especially when fueled by that mystic amber that held him spellbound for so long. Here, a trio of siblings, tragically abused in their childhood, emerge and the girl in the triad is someone with whom Dave has a history, of course. Things kick off when one of the siblings survives a strange assassination attempt – it could have been their presumed dead father or someone whom the man owes money or the CIA. But the man won’t fill Dave in – another recurring show more theme; these people would do well to just tell the story the first time Dave asks because it would mean less bloodshed.

Another Highly Recommend – they just get better with each new book. Burke is a master with words.
5 bones!!!!! show less

Dave Robicheaux is back for his sixth outing. I have made a pact to myself that I will read every single book in this much-beloved series. James Lee Burke has set the gold standard for literary noir mysteries with his Dave Robicheaux series. There is no one out there like him, but there are a whole bunch that are trying to write like he does. An old buddy of Dave’s has come back into his life, and Dave is not happy. He knows the Sonnier family is trouble and it can do no good to become enmeshed in their quarrels. As Dave and his friend Clete Purcell try to unravel the mystery, a young police officer is killed in a most horrible way, and the mobsters from New Orleans are coming out of the woodwork and circling around Dave and his show more family. Dave, in his usual laconic way, works his methodical way through two or three separate crimes in order to discover the truth to the first crime, which was the killing of the young police officer. Listening to this book during an Alberta heatwave seemed to bring me closer to the story as Dave does his thing during a scorching hot Louisiana summer. Highly recommend. show less

Number five in the Dave Robicheaux series, and my favorite of the the first five. Dave is back in New Iberia, Louisiana, running his bait shop and working full time for the sheriff's department. Someone is stalking the Sonnier family, two brothers and a sister who were horribly abused as children but grew up to be more or less successful in the community. A local mobster seems to be involved. As is perhaps the Sonniers' father, an evil man thought to be long dead. Getting straight answers from the Sonniers--an oil speculator, a TV preacher, and an aid worker--is no easy task. In some ways, it's easier dealing with the mobster, although his henchmen are violent and batsh*t crazy.

Although the setting and the characters are similar to show more those in the earlier books, there seems to be a new depth. Dave, although still a hothead, seems more grounded, less tortured. He's more willing to accept help from allies as varied as his former partner Clete, a man born to cross lines others would never cross, and Batist, the illiterate black friend who helps run Dave's bait shop. The Sonniers are so interesting and well-drawn I wouldn't mind seeing them turn up in future books. The plot is complex, but understandable, and is more or less neatly resolved in an ending that's positively cinematic.

There's more character and more humor here than in the earlier books. This might be where I'd recommend someone start. show less

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 show more 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? show less

James Lee Burke is an excellent storyteller. He creates a tale full of atmosphere and mystery, and if plot details occasionally seem questionable, well, they remain engaging.

Book five in the Dave Robicheaux series hits all Burke’s high points:

An immersive, sense-filled setting:

“I… walked into the French Quarter. The narrow streets were still cool with morning shadow, and I could smell coffee and fresh-backed bread in the cafes, strawberries and plums from the crates set out on the sidewalks in front of small grocery stores, the dank, cool odor of old brick in the courtyards. It had rained just before dawn, and water leaked out of the green window shutters on the pastel sides of the buildings and dripped from the rows of potted show more plants on the balconies or hanging from the ironwork.”

Character description that goes beyond the physical:

“Her accent was soft, pleasant to listen to, more Mississippi than Louisiana, but in it you heard a tremolo, as though a nerve ending were pulled loose and fluttering inside her.”

Plot hints:

“There was something too cavalier about her attitude, and I had the feeling that she had anticipated my visit and had already made a private decision about the outcome of our conversation.”

Observations of human character:

“He told me he had been a navy corpsman before he had gone to work for the parish as a paramedic. His face was young and clean-shaved, and he reminded me of most medics, firemen, or U.S. Forest Service smoke jumpers whom I had known. They were enamored of the adrenaline rush, living on the edge, but they tended to be quiet and self-effacing men, and unlike many cops they didn’t have self-destructive obsessions.”

A narrator who struggles with human truths:

“At that moment I realized the error of my thinking about Bootsie. The problem wasn’t in her disease, it was in mine. I wanted a lock on the future, I wanted our new marriage to be above the governance of mortality and chance; and, most important, in my nightly sleeplessness over her health, and the black fatigue that I would drag behind me into the day like a rattling junkyard, I hadn’t bothered to be grateful for the things I had.”



At the story level, A Stained White Radiance lives up to the high standards set in earlier books. Dave, a detective with the small Iberia Parish’s sheriff’s office, gets an call about a shooting at Weldon Sonnier’s house. Weldon tries to dismiss it as a kid hunting, but Dave’s not so sure. When a fatal break in at Weldon’s house commits Dave to investigation, Weldon’s siblings Drew and Lyle become reluctantly involved.

As Robicheaux delves into the affairs of the Sonnier siblings, Burke takes the opportunity to wind through Cajun country, this time focusing a little more on race aspects of Louisiana politics (the “Stained White” title is delicious). War history again plays a role in character relationships. I found plot-character mix a bit confusing at a few points, but truly, that must be how it seems to investigate a case–multiple leads that may or may not result in a solution. There’s false trails here, more so than in the average mystery. But as I finished, I realized Dave’s false starts make sense, although plotting falls slightly outside normal mystery conventions.

For those who haven’t tried the Robicheaux series, I’d recommend starting at the first, [b:The Neon Rain|55022|The Neon Rain (Dave Robicheaux, #1)|James Lee Burke|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1386748162s/55022.jpg|1916440]. Burke started out extremely strong, so there’s no worry about waiting for the series to gain footing. The main mystery in each book stands alone, but Dave’s wrestling with his personal demons is an ongoing character issue and there’s something to be gained from understanding that struggle. I strongly recommend the series to people who enjoy mysteries, complicated characters and developed settings. show less

Kinda getting a sense of diminishing returns five books into this series. I'm a little surprised that there was enough gas in the tank for another 16 books, but hey, I'm still digging the series enough to carry on.

This time around, we got a fair amount of talk about Robicheaux's higher power, which, while I understand is a basic tenant of the Alcoholics Anonymous group, it kind of got a bit old by the third or fourth mention. And yet again, Robicheaux decides to flop once again on whether to be a cop or not.

In the first couple of books the question always seemed to be, will Dave succumb to his alcoholism? where now that he's seemed to conquer that (at least for the time being), the new one is, if Dave's a cop at the beginning of the show more novel, will he still be one at the end? Or vice versa..

Ah well, even for all of that, it's fun to read James Lee Burke's writing, as it only improves as we get deeper into his writing career.

Like I said, a little bit of a diminishing return on this one, but still worth the ride. show less

My second book in the Dave Robicheaux series. This was more of a whodunit that Burning Angel. Early in the book a police officer on the New Iberia force is murdered in a particularly grisly fashion. The suspects include members of the Ayran Brotherhood, a New Orleans mafiosi and a racist politician. Also at the center of the book is the Sonnier family. Robicheaux had grown up with the Sonnier's and been briefly romantically involved with the sister Drew. Lyle has served in Vietnam with Robicheaux who had ordered him into a VC tunnel where an explosion wounded him severely and left him scarred for life. He had become a TV evangelist with the power to heal others through their faith. The other brother, Weldon, had also served in Vietnam show more and then flew for Air America. When desperate for money for his business Weldon had done some work for Joey Gouza, the New Orleans mafiosi, that ended with Weldon ripping them off and dumping their guns and cocaine into the ocean. Weldons wife was the sister of Bobby Earl the racist politician whom Robicheaux despised. Verise Sonnier the father of Lyle, Weldon and Drew who had been thought dead appears in the book. He had always carried an evil soul and the accident that supposedly killed him had left him disfigured with burn scars that showed the evil on the outside.
There is ample action in the book to keep it interesting but the real action is the interplay of Dave Robicheaux with the characters including his wife Bootsie, his daughter Alfaria. It is Robicheaux's interior life that separates these books from the standard mysteries. He shows great sensitivity to everything going on around him and his own flaws. The plot lines are tied up by the end but there is always a feeling that this is not the end for Dave Robicheaux. As always the author highlights the physical world from the texture of St. Augustine grass to the gnarly backs of gar fish in the river to complete the picture of the world going on in the book. I enjoyed this book more than Burning Angel and I now have seven more to look forward to. show less