In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead (Dave Robicheaux Mysteries, No. 6) [Hardcover]

James Lee Burke (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1900

Haunted by the reemergence of a forty-year-old unsolved murder, detective Dave Robicheaux must also contend with a spate of serial killings of prostitutes and local dissension about the movie company that is shooting in town. 75,000 first printing. Tour.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In the sixth Dave Robicheaux mystery (following A Stained White Radiance ), Burke explores new narrative territory with qualified success, leading his Cajun detective into a series of dreamlike encounters with a troop of Confederate soldiers under Gen. John Bell Hood. Soon after the severely mutilated body of a young woman is found in a ditch outside the southern Louisiana town of New Iberia, deputy sheriff Robicheaux busts Elrod Sykes, star of a Hollywood movie being filmed nearby, for drunk driving. Sykes says a skeleton wrapped in chains was unearthed during filming in a marsh where, in 1957, Robicheaux witnessed--but remained silent about--the killing of a chained black man by two white men. As the belatedly guilt-stricken detective tries to identify that victim, another young woman is brutally killed. Then, Sykes's co-star is shot to death, perhaps having been mistaken for Robicheaux, who gradually connects the recent murders to Louisiana mob-kingpin Baby Feet Balboni, a key backer of the movie. With the help of FBI agent Rosie Gomez and the intermittent, often elliptical advice of the ghostly Gen. Hood, Robicheaux nails the psycho--but not before the man has kidnapped the detective's young daughter Alafair. Burke's evocative prose is well suited to the misty bayou scenes in which past and present mingle, but the links between the two eras are weak, and some of the contemporary characters lack definition. 75,000 first printing; BOMC and QPB selections; author tour.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

New Iberia Lt. Dave Robicheaux (A Stained White Radiance, 1992, etc.) is trying to link the murder of a local hooker to New Orleans mobster Julie (Baby Feet) Balboni--back in his home parish as co- producer of Hollywood director Michael Goldman's Civil War film--when sozzled/psychic movie-star Elrod Sykes, pulled over for drunk driving, starts babbling about a corpse he found in the Atchafalaya Swamp--the corpse of a black man Dave had seen murdered 35 years before. Convinced that Baby Feet is the key to both the old murder and the horrific new serial killings of prostitutes, Dave goes outside the law to nail him over the protests of locals getting fat off Hollywood-and- mob money--provoking stunning new outbursts of violence, getting suspended after a shootout leaves still another prostitute dead, and finding himself holding hushed conversations with the specter of a Confederate general whom Sykes had already met deep in the bayou. Dave's visions of the Confederate dead bring a Faulknerian resonance to the miasmal guilt and self-doubt that enrich all his encounters with evil. After outstanding success in the genre, Burke has produced a violent, somber, deeply satisfying crossover novel. (First printing of 75,000) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 344 pages
• Publisher: Hyperion; 1st edition (January 1, 1900)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1562828827
• ISBN-13: 978-1562828820
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (55 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #390,890 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

James Lee Burke, a rare winner of two Edgar Awards, is the author of twenty-three previous novels, including such New York Times bestsellers as Bitterroot, Purple Cane Road, Cimarron Rose, Jolie Blon's Bounce, and Dixie City Jam. He lives in Missoula, Montana, and New Iberia, Louisiana.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Oh, my! <fans herself>, December 22, 2005

By 

Naomi Johnson "beauvallet" (Columbus, Ohio USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: In The Electric Mist with the Confederate Dead (Audio CD)

Well, there's no need to deliver one more plot synopsis or refine further on the character of Dave Robicheaux. This was only my second reading of a James Lee Burke book ('Jole Blon's Bounce' was the first I read) and all I can think of to say about the wonderful writing, the perfect pacing, the depth and complexity of the characterizations, the tiny bubbles of hilarity that occasionally escape from the dark depths of the story, is to give you a list of adjectives: Lush, evocative, lyrical, breathtaking, gritty, grotesque, poignant, irritating, polemic, dynamic, intimate, sad, painful, peaceful, disturbing, and ultimately seductive. Some of those adjectives may seem contradictory. But so is human nature, and Burke captures that, as well as the landscape of south Louisiana, to a level of perfection that ordinarily escapes homo sapiens. This book made me laugh, made my eyes tear up, made me flinch, made me cheer, made me homesick for a place I haven't seen in 27 years. This book is art. Great art.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Robicheaux's melancholic moods, in full swing., March 6, 2001

By 

Allan - See all my reviews

This review is from: In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead (Mass Market Paperback)

James Lee Burke's creation, Dave Robicheaux, is a perfect Everyman. He struggles with demons - his own, and those of others. He is an excellently flawed man, a man of great strengths, towering weaknesses, and deep melancholy: his humanity bleeds from evgery page.

In the Electric Mist With Confederate Dead gives us a better, and deeper, insight into Burke's Everyman. The story purports to be a mystery / thriller, and is designated as such by Amazon. It is, of course, much more, and much less, than that. The mystery is satisfying, of course. Mr. Burke doesn't know how to write a bad mystery. But it's a side-bar to what the book really is: a series of character studies. There's Robicheaux, of course. The story is told in the first person, so the reader is swept into his psyche from the first page. There's Bootsie and Alafair, the people closest to Robicheaux - and the people he often feels are the furthest from him. There's Clete Purcell, his psychotic, sweaty, shambling drunken hulk of a partner. There are the figures from his past, who return to haunt him. And there is, of course, the ghost of the Confederate General with whome Robicheaux confers, and exposes not only himself, but the entire landscape of characters.

Speaking of which - the Louisiana landscape is as much a character as any of the others. The dust, the heat, the colours, the odours, the taste of the land play as large a part as any human in the book.

Mr Burke has been writing the best prose in popular American fiction for the past ten years, if not longer. He has always been a superb writer, making every word perform well above its potential. And in this book, In the Electric Mist With Confederate Dead, he has written one of his finest works.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars he write with all five senses......., May 17, 2000

By 

jeanne-scott (Virginia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead (Mass Market Paperback)

If you are unfamiliar with this author, this book would be an interesting introduction to the Dave Robicheaux novels by Burke. Burke writes with all five senses in mind. The descriptions of the Southern Louisiana will make you thirst for a sweet tea. The plot revolves around a possible serial murderer of young girls. It also involves the mafia infiltrating his locale through a Hollywood movie making event. The two may be connected. When Dave Robicheaux begins to see Confederate soldiers, and has conversations with them, you wonder, was it Dave Robicheaux' car accident, was it alcohol, or has Mr. Burke opted for a science fantasy turn of events. (No, it is not the latter!) This was an extremely well done novel, not his best of the Dave Robicheaux novels, but still very good. If you haven't read other of James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux novels, anytime is a good time to start. If you enjoy Southern Detective/Police mysteries, these will not dissapoint you.