Pegasus Descending: A Dave Robicheaux Novel (Dave Robicheaux Mysteries) [Hardcover]

James Lee Burke (Author)

Book Description

Series: Dave Robicheaux Mysteries | Publication Date: July 18, 2006

Detective Dave Robicheaux is facing the most painful and dangerous case of his career. A troubled young woman breezes into his hometown of New Iberia, Louisiana. She happens to be the daughter of Robicheaux's onetime best friend -- a friend he witnessed gunned down in a bank robbery, a tragedy that forever changed Robicheaux's life.

In Pegasus Descending, James Lee Burke again explores psyches as much as evidence, and tries to make sense of human behavior as well as of his characters' crimes. Richly atmospheric, frightening in its sudden violence, and replete with the sort of puzzles only the best crime fiction creates, Burke's latest novel is an unforgettable roller coaster of passion, surprise, and regret.

The twists begin when Trish Klein -- the only offspring of Robicheaux's Vietnam-era buddy -- starts passing marked hundred-dollar bills in local casinos. Is she a good kid gone bad? A victim's child seeking revenge? A promiscuous beauty seducing everyone good within her grasp? And how does her behavior relate to the apparent suicide of another "good" girl, an ace student named Yvonne Darbonne, who apparently participated in a college frat orgy before her death?

Can Robicheaux make his peace with the demons that have haunted him since his friend's murder so many years ago? Can he figure out how a local mobster fits into all the schemes and deaths? Can Robicheaux's life be whole again when it has been shattered by so much tragedy?

Once again, Burke proves why he is the virtual poet laureate of southern Louisiana, and why his novels, especially those featuring Dave Robicheaux, stand as brilliant literature and entertainment for our time.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Drawing on classical antecedents, bestseller Burke peoples his 15th Dave Robicheaux novel (after 2004's Crusader's Cross) with his usual assortment of near mythic characters, demonstrating how our everyday lives are beset with age-old, universal dilemmas. New Iberia, La., detective Dave Robicheaux, for whom redemption has become a lifelong pursuit, suits up once again to tilt against villains both real and in his own troubled psyche. Twenty-five years earlier, the young alcohol-soaked cop witnessed his friend and fellow Vietnam vet, Dallas Klein, executed by a group of cold-blooded thugs. He was unable to intercede because he was plastered. Now, a young grifter who may be the victim's daughter, Trish Klein, has appeared in New Iberia, passing counterfeit money and baiting Whitey Bruxal, the aging mobster responsible for Dallas's death. Meanwhile, Dave investigates the apparent suicide of pretty young co-ed Yvonne Darbonne. Are the two cases linked? Dave thinks so, and he enlists longtime loose-cannon sidekick Clete Purcel to prove it. With peerless naturalistic descriptions and lush, metaphysical imagery, Burke creates another challenging morality play for his flawed, everyman hero. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

In James Lee Burke's novels, the past in never farther away than the ripples on the bayou outside Dave Robicheaux's New Iberia, Louisiana, home. This time it's Robicheaux's dark personal history--when the detective "was still going steady with Jim Beam straight up and a beer back"--that interferes with the tranquil present for newly married Dave. When Trish Klein turns up in New Iberia, it doesn't take long for Robicheaux to realize she is the daughter of his old friend, Dallas, who died in an armored-car robbery that Dave witnessed but was too drunk to stop. To make amends, Robicheaux must solve the several interconnected murders that track back to the man behind the armored-car hit. Everything that makes this series so compelling--the elegiac, seductively lyrical prose; the complex character of Robicheaux; the lovingly evoked bayou setting-- is here in abundance, and if it doesn't galvanize into something quite as special as the last episode, Crusader's Cross (2005), that's only because we've come to expect so much from this series. The fact remains that no serious reader of hard-boiled fiction should ever miss a moment of Dave Robicheaux in action. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1ST edition (July 18, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743277724
• ISBN-13: 978-0743277723
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (121 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #703,061 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

46 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars At the top of his game..., July 27, 2006

By 

Cynthia K. Robertson (beverly, new jersey USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Pegasus Descending: A Dave Robicheaux Novel (Dave Robicheaux Mysteries) (Hardcover)

Last summer, I discovered James Lee Burke and ended up reading all 14 Dave Robicheaux mysteries in quick succession. Thank goodness Burke just came out with Pegasus Descending as it's been a long 8 months without a fix.

Dave Robicheaux is still a detective, working for the Iberia Sheriff's Department. The year is 2005 and three unsolved deaths are on Robicheaux's plate. First, a young co-ed getting ready for college is found with a gunshot wound to her head. It looks like a suicide, and the detective can't figure out why this apparently happy, well-adjusted girl would have taken too many drugs, had sex with more than a few men and then shot herself. The skeletal remains of a homeless man (nicknamed Crustacean Man) are found in a drainage ditch and seem to have sat there for 12 months. His injuries are not consistent with a hit and run. And a college student, Tony Lujan, is killed with a shotgun. Robicheaux suspects that all three deaths are related, but can't find the pieces that will tie this puzzle together. He keeps coming back to the same names: Bellerophon Lujan and Whitey Bruxal, two men who have mob ties and are in the casino business. Unfortunately, the politically ambitious DA, Lonnie Marceaux, wants to pin the crimes on a small-tine black drug dealer, Monarch Little. How Pegasus Descending plays out is riveting and I was completely surprised at the end.

Many of Burke's characters that we have grown to know and love are back. Cletus Purcell is always there for Robicheaux and is always good for a few belly laughs. Robicheaux seems a little more grounded with his new wife, the former nun Molly Boyle. The women in Robicheaux's past tended to be victim-types. So it's refreshing for Robicheaux to have two strong women in his corner, wife Molly and Sheriff Helen Soileau. There is a new female FBI agent in town who provides some comic relief. Betsy Mossbacher gets the nickname Calamity Jane when she backs into a sheriff's cruiser her first day in town. Robicheaux can't decide whether Homeland Security has drained the FBI of their "first team" or maybe she's being punished. But despite the humor, there is always an underlying blackness in Burke's books whether it is caused by Robicheaux's battle with alcoholism, lost opportunities, senseless deaths, and with Pegasus Descending, the looming specter of Hurricane Katrina.

Many writers of mystery series run out of energy, ideas, characters, etc. once they've been at it for awhile. Luckily for his readers, Burke is still at the top of his game in Pegasus Descending.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pegasus is wet with atmosphere and a good read., July 19, 2006

By 

Robert Busko (North Carolina) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Pegasus Descending: A Dave Robicheaux Novel (Dave Robicheaux Mysteries) (Hardcover)

It just wouldn't be July or August without a Burke crafted Dave Robicheaux novel. In Pegasus Descending Burke treats us once again with a gritty, humid, and atmospheric thriller that is sure to satisfy all of Burkes loyal readers. I've said this before but I'll say it again, James Lee Burke is one of the finest descriptive writers alive today. He can describe a humid summer day in the pages of his book and you'll have to wipe your brow because of the sweat gathering there. The scenes and smells he describes will fill your senses. That and his cast of characters, including former Marine Clete Purcell makes each new book like a visit home.

Dave Robicheaux is a survivor of too much of a good thing. Long off the bottle he is still paying for his affair with alcohol and as another reviewer said, the past is never far away. Trish Klein, a young scam artist, turns out to be the daughter of Robicheaux's best friend and fellow Nam vet Dallas Klein. Robicheaux witnessed Dallas' execution style murder years before but was too blasted to intervene. Fast forward to now and young Trish has disappeared after ripping off a local mobster.

Burke has a love affair with NOLA. It will be interesting to see if he eventually incorporates Katrina into a future novel.



Pegasus is a must read for all Burke fans.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "...wish to rise? Begin by descending...plan a tower to reach the clouds? Lay ...the foundation in humility." St. Augustus, March 24, 2010

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michael a. draper (Guilford, CT) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Pegasus Descending: A Dave Robicheaux Novel (Dave Robicheaux Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

Dave Robicheaux is working on three cases that he comes to believe are connected.

The first is the case of a young co-ed who is found dead of apparent suicide but the facts don't add up.

Then there is a black vagrant whose body is found in a gulley by the road. He is so decomposed, he is given the nickname the Crustation man. Not many people would care for the apparent victim of a hit and run but to Dave, it is a matter of justice.

Besides the third case, Dave is asked to question a young woman who is passing money at a casino that looks like it has the markings of a former hold up. Dave finds that this woman is the daughter of a friend that Dave had seen killed during an armored car robbery.

The third death is that of a college student. There had been a racial incident and the black man involved was known to sell drugs. The ambitious district attorney views this man as the main suspect when the college student is killed. However, Dave thinks that the man is being set up.

James Lee Burke is a master and the reader is glued to the action as Dave attemps to sort these crimes out. All of this is happening as New Orleans is on the verge of Hurricane Katrina and the destruction that storm brought with it.

Dave Robicheaux, with his sense of justice, his faith and his unstable temper is one of the great characters in literature. Together with his loyal but flawed side-kick Clete Purcel, these two characters leave an imprint that is unmatched.