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| PEGASUS DESCENDING
- Reviews |
July, 2006 (Robicheaux)
From <b>Publishers Weekly</b>
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.
“Enriched by the presence of the resourceful yet flawed Dave Robicheaux—probably the most fascinating protagonist in contemporary crime fiction—as well as complex characterizations, luminous prose, and profound observations of human nature at its best and worst, James Lee Burke’s new novel may be his very best.” – Booklist
“(A)s in every James Lee Burke novel, the contrast between the writer's lyrical style and the dark and violent world he describes is simply stunning…a fine addition to one of the greatest series in American crime fiction.” – Associated Press
“Here, in Burke's 15th crime novel featuring his roughneck hero Dave Robicheaux, he is still on high ground, writing about crimes whose roots run so deep in old blood feuds and historical race and class hatred, they take on mythic scale.”
– New York Times Book Review
“Burke gathers his numerous plot threads smoothly and effectively, his flawed hero is as intriguingly complicated as always, and his patented bayou descriptions continue to paint a lovingly evocative portrait of a nature wonderland where evening skies are "the soft pink of a flamingo's wing.” - ¬Los Angeles Times
“(A)nother compelling journey through Louisiana's haunted bayou country and more close encounters with the peculiar folk who inhabit it.” – San Diego Union-Tribune
“With mythically named characters galore (Bellerophon, Monarch, Prospect), subplots that come together more coherently than in previous Robicheaux novels, and evocative descriptions of bayou life, Burke's beautifully constructed American setting manages to remain as foreign as the farthest tropical villages.” – Entertainment Weekly
“There's never a lack of compelling characters in Burke's books, and they fulfill their role of emphasizing the violent and racist past of southern Louisiana like trained actors. Burke knows the people and attitudes and, most of all, the history of a beautiful and damaged part of America that seems to have floated in from elsewhere. The myth of Pegasus and Bellerophon is an apt subject to apply to Burke's story of hubris and deranged expectations.” – Rocky Mountain News
(July) |
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