15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Mike Hammer meets Spenser..., August 21, 2005
After reading a bunch of bestseller but lackluster mysteries this summer, it was wonderful to discover an author of some substance-James Lee Burke. Dixie City Jam (the Dave Robicheaux series) reads more like a mystery written by a novelist, and Burke's literary style is unmatched by most mystery writers today.
Dave Robicheaux, a former New Orleans PD policeman, is now a detective with the New Iberia sheriff's office. Robicheaux discovered a Nazi u-boat in Gulf waters, and now a number of people are lining up to find the sub's location. Will Buchalter is a spooky, brutal, neo-Nazi who is willing to stop at nothing to get his hands on the sub, and haunts Robicheaux and his family (leaving dead bodies in his wake). There are also several subplots involving drug deals, prostitution, mobsters, crooked cops, and a vigilante murderer killing drug dealers and cutting out their hearts.
Burke's characters are a colorful bunch, and Robicheaux's former partner and now PI, Cletus Purcel, is probably the best of the bunch. He will have you in stitches as he goes against the mob. New Orleans is also a major player in Dixie City Jam, and the sultry, sensuous, steamy city (the locals call it The Big Sleazy) provides a fitting backdrop.
Burke's writing is top notch, and his dialog between characters reads like Mike Hammer meets Spenser. Robicheaux has a background in literature (something rare in law enforcement) and it's easy to see that Burke is a serious writer who shares a love of literature with his fictional detective. Burke has received a number of deserved literary awards and was even nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
The only negative about Dixie City Jam is that some of it seemed a bit unbelievable. How Buchalter could have gone on a crime spree lasting decades while eluding detection or capture was a stretch. But this doesn't detract from this otherwise fabulous book. Burke is another writer who I'm now motivated to read everything he's written. I've already started Last Car to Elysian Fields.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Finely tuned evocation of crime in the Big Easy, June 17, 2001
It can be a terrible thing for the avid reader to discover the works of an already established and prolific author. If the author is not to the reader's taste, no problem exists; if, however, the author's work grabs the reader by the throat and refuses to let go, the reader is faced with the daunting task of reading everything else the author has written. Such is the case with James Lee Burke and his series of Dave Robicheaux novels; while I already have a sizable list of novels on my summer reading list, I am forced, after reading DIXIE CITY JAM, to seek out more of Burke's mystery novels.
DIXIE is set in and around the city of New Orleans (always a vivid setting for an atmospheric mystery). Dave Robicheaux is a detective with the Sheriff's Office who is juggling many balls at once. In addition to his police duties, he has been hired to locate a WW II U-boat that was sunk in local waters many years ago. He also has the added predicament of helping out his old comrade Clete Purcel stay alive as he constantly and foolishly aggravates local crime figures Max and Bobo Calucci. But things come to a head when he finds himself warding off the unwelcome advances of Will Buchalter, an enormous neo-Nazi who's ultimate motives for terrorizing Robicheaux's family remain frighteningly obscure.
Clearly, Burke has no problem with handling many different plot threads. The narrative leaps from element to element; an ailing gangster who wishes to make amends; a young man who is trying to become more than be believes he can be; an interrogation scene that will make the reader squirm. His management of these disparate elements is so skillful, so loaded with portent, that the eventual solution to Robicheaux's many dilemmas comes off as anti-climactic. In the genre of crime writing, perhaps only James Ellroy can be trusted to pull together myriad subplots into a satisfactory conclusion. But that doesn't mean it's not a travel worth taking. Burke shows a genuine flair for capturing the idioms of New Orleans speech; it may not be authentic, but in relation to the story, it is vital and alive. What may come across as precocious and obtrusive in a lesser writer is transformed in Burke's hands into true characterization and ambiance. The native patois becomes integral to the novel's success at presenting New Orleans as a character, rather than a setting.
Burke has crafted a marvelous variety of characters to inhabit his world. Robicheaux is a hero firmly entrenched in the classic detective mode, an honourable man, tough yet tender, who operates with one eye towards justice, and the other towards his own inner demons. Clete is an absurdly erratic yet loyal companion, a man who cannot control his own impulses, even at the risk of self-destruction. And among the wide diversity of supporting characters, none is more frightening or memorable than Buchalter, a creation of monstrous proportions. He is among the creepiest of psychopaths I can ever remember meeting in print, a pleasure/pain lover with severe racist overtones, a genuinely despicable monster with no redeeming qualities. It takes real craftsmanship to construct a portrait of evil so convincingly.
As I said, the ending, coming after multiple storylines involving mobsters, anti-Semitism, corrupt cops and blatant racism, seems a letdown. It wraps up the story convincingly, but perhaps it's a testament to Burke's abilities that it seems a shame to end the tale. As in all the great mysteries, Burke creates a world unto itself, rife with passion and rage. That the mystery can be solved at all is secondary to the people who inhabit the world. Burke's New Orleans is a dangerous place, a jungle of seething violence and corruption, a site on par with Ellroy's Los Angeles and Ian Rankin's Edinburgh. One can only hope his further explorations into Dave Robicheaux's universe remain as entertaining.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
With the first words I'm back in southern Louisiana!, February 1, 1999
By A Customer
When I heard Will Patton's first sentence of my first Dave Robicheaux novel I really did feel that I was transported to New Orleans and southern La. Those wonderful full, round vowels, clipped d's and t's at the end of words, and the melodious, artistic descriptions paint a picture I can't get enough of. Now I'm waiting to get my hands on the next James Lee Burke masterpiece - especially with Patton reading. Don't worry about which of Burke's novels you're grabbing because eventually you'll read them all, one after another like not being able to stop eating pralines or fresh oysters!
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