Unavailable
Unavailable
Unavailable
Ebook399 pages6 hours
Purple Cane Road
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
Dave Robicheaux has spent his life confronting the age-old adage that the sins of the father pass onto the son. But what has his mother’s legacy left him? Dead to him since youth, Mae Guillory has been shuttered away in the deep recesses of Dave’s mind. He’s lived with the fact that he would never really know what happened to the woman who left him to the devices of his whiskey-driven father. But deep down, he still feels the loss of his mother and knows the infinite series of disappointments in her life could not have come to a good end.
While helping out an old friend, Dave is stunned when a pimp looks at him sideways and asks him if he is Mae Guillory’s boy, the whore a bunch of cops murdered 30 years ago. The pimp goes on to insinuate that the cops who dumped her body in the bayou were on the take and continue to thrive in the New Orleans area.
Dave’s search for his mother’s killers leads him to the darker places in his past and solving this case teaches him what it means to be his mother’s son. Purple Cane Road has the dimensions of a classic-passion, murder, and nearly heartbreaking poignancy-wrapped in a wonderfully executed plot that surprises from start to finish.
While helping out an old friend, Dave is stunned when a pimp looks at him sideways and asks him if he is Mae Guillory’s boy, the whore a bunch of cops murdered 30 years ago. The pimp goes on to insinuate that the cops who dumped her body in the bayou were on the take and continue to thrive in the New Orleans area.
Dave’s search for his mother’s killers leads him to the darker places in his past and solving this case teaches him what it means to be his mother’s son. Purple Cane Road has the dimensions of a classic-passion, murder, and nearly heartbreaking poignancy-wrapped in a wonderfully executed plot that surprises from start to finish.
Unavailable
Author
James Lee Burke
James Lee Burke is a New York Times bestselling author, two-time winner of the Edgar Award, and the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts in Fiction. He has authored forty novels and two short story collections. He lives in Missoula, Montana.
Read more from James Lee Burke
Heaven's Prisoners Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Robicheaux: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Burning Angel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cadillac Jukebox Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The New Iberia Blues: A Dave Robicheaux Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flags on the Bayou: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Neon Rain: A Dave Robicheaux Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Stained White Radiance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Swan Peak: A Dave Robicheaux Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cimarron Rose Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dixie City Jam Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lay Down My Sword and Shield Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Every Cloak Rolled in Blood Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Jealous Kind: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bitterroot: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Two for Texas Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Convict and Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Get-Back Boogie Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jolie Blon's Bounce: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Last Car to Elysian Fields Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5White Doves at Morning: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5To the Bright and Shining Sun Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jesus Out to Sea: Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Harbor Lights Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related to Purple Cane Road
Related ebooks
The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sabbath Night in the Church of the Piranha Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Lost Get-Back Boogie Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Love's Labours Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Story of the Foss River Ranch A Tale of the Northwest Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Fall of Declan Curtis Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Convict and Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Two for Texas Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Large Animals in Everyday Life: Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Burnt Black: Cliff Saint James, #3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEverything Must Go: The Life and Death of an American Neighborhood Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Branding Iron Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Storycatcher Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Good Brother: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Cimarron Rose Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Children's Crusade: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tales from the Crossing at Barracuda Flats Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Waiting for Beirut Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Lost Country Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5South Toward Home: Adventures and Misadventures in My Native Land Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Goffle Road Murders of Passaic County: The 1850 Van Winkle Killings Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPostmark Berlin: A Mystery Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Local Customs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Monster of Twenty Mile Pond Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Mistress' Eyes Are Raven Black Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUntying the Moon: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Holy Cross and Other Tales Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFlaming Zeppelins: The Adventures of Ned the Seal Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJacob the Mutant Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Under the Lake Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Suspense For You
Pretty Girls: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5None of This Is True: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Then She Was Gone: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Flicker in the Dark: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5If We Were Villains: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Thing He Told Me: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Perfect Marriage: A Completely Gripping Psychological Suspense Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Girl Who Was Taken: A Gripping Psychological Thriller Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Paris Apartment: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Outsider: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fairy Tale Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Terminal List: A Thriller Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Flight: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mr. Mercedes: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Institute: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Wife Upstairs: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hunting Party: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Misery Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Brother Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Whisper Man: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Maidens: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Good Daughter: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Housemaid Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Foe: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Billy Summers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All the Missing Girls: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Purple Cane Road
Rating: 3.9645522626865675 out of 5 stars
4/5
268 ratings12 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This book should have ended much sooner than it did. I'm surprised there was anyone left alive at all. A marvelous storyteller, Burke needs a strong person to tell him he's gone too far with the violence.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The book does a la la the bayou and la la cyprus and la la the other plants and la la the sunset to lull readers lyrical with the serenity of the southern Louisiana swamps. Then Burke hits you--with unforgiving, brutal, gotta-do-it-cause-I'm-damaged violence that takes your breath.
Wife Bootsie and daughter are marginal in this buddy duet of killing, beating, punching, and some knifing centered around the ex-drunk, post-PTSD, still detective Robicheaux and his double, the what-Robicheaux-would-have -been-except-for-being saved-by-his-wifelet, the ex-cop, still drunk, bigger-than-any-scumbag, cadillac-prowling, gumshoe friend Clete.
Burke cannot push the series any farther without having the rage destroy Robicheaux. Maybe it already has. So I'm wondering what the next installment will do.
And yes the mosquito-infested bogs are beautiful in Burke's writing. Makes you want to go visit. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Purple Cane Road. James Lee Burke. 2000. Dang, I guess I thought this was the second Dave Robicheaux novel because it was about the murder of his mother. And I planned to start with the first book and read forward until I get to the ones I’ve already read. This is the eleventh book in the series!! And I put the second book in Library Thing so I must have read it, at some point, but I don’t remember it! Anyway this is another great Robicheaux novel in which he wrestles with good and evil. He is married to Bootsie and has the bait shop on the river and Alafaire is teenager, is going to AAS, and to mass. Clete is present in all his psychotic glory. He does find the true story of his mother’s death which will bring him some peace. I love these books. Lots of violence and lots of delicious Cajun names!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dave Robicheaux has spent his life confronting the age-old adage that the sins of the father pass onto the son. But what has his mother's legacy left him? Dead to him since youth, Mae Guillory has been shuttered away in the deep recesses of Dave's mind. He's lived with the fact that he would never really know what happened to the woman who left him to the devices of his whiskey-driven father. But deep down, he still feels the loss of his mother and knows the infinite series of disappointments in her life could not have come to a good end.While helping out an old friend, Dave is stunned when a pimp looks at him sideways and asks him if he is Mae Guillory's boy, the whore a bunch of cops murdered 30 years ago. The pimp goes on to insinuate that the cops who dumped her body in the bayou were on the take and continue to thrive in the New Orleans area.Dave's search for his mother's killers leads him to the darker places in his past and solving this case teaches him what it means to be his mother's son
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Probably one of the better entries in the Dave Robicheaux series; I've read eight of its ten predecessors, and I'd say this one comes in second to A Stained White Radiance. Unlike some of the Robicheaux stories, the plot is comprehensible and ties itself up neatly; the villains are believable; and the hero, though constantly in danger of going over the edge, manages (with the help of his friends) to keep from messing up his own life too distressingly. Am I damning with faint praise? I admit I'm getting weary of the formula, and would like to see Dave's family, if not Dave, have the occasional shot at a carefree day or two. And a little humor would go a long way. But let's not forget the unique virtues that Burke brings the reader, which include an unusual insight into the human flaws of ordinary and not-so-ordinary people, an unmatched ability to describe the peculiar natural environment of southern Louisiana, and at the root of it all, a deep love for human beings, however bad a few of them may be.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Burke, one of my favorite writers, has an extraordinary gift for the use of similes. He can evoke the atmosphere and scenery that sets him way above other writers in the mystery genre. Despite the brutality, violence and corruption, the story intrigues, and Burke continues to develop the character of Dave Robichaeux, ex- New Orleans cop and now homicide detective for the New Iberia Sheriff’s department. The integration of the past and its influence on the present is a recurring theme in Burke's books. Dave is trying to help Letty Labiche, a woman on death row for having murdered the man who had repeatedly molested her and her sister. That he was a cop meant the girls had little sympathy from the department. During his search for exculpatory evidence, Dave stumbles across Zipper Clum, a New Orleans lowlife who provides Dave with information that provideshim with leads related to the death of Dave's mother many years before. Dave, whose memories of his mother, Mae, are bittersweet, becomes obsessed with finding her murderers, cops in the pay of a local crime family, as it turns out. The investigation becomes messy, as the Labiche case becomes intertwined with his search for his mother's killers. Jim Gable, the political liaison in the governor's office with the New Orleans police department whom Dave has reason to dislike more than most, becomes implicated as does the attorney general, a woman Dave learns had connections with Labiche's parents. In the meantime, a hit man, Johnny Remeta, has taken a liking to Alifair, Dave's daughter. Johnny, too, is involved in the whole sordid mess that resolves into a climax revealing the truth of Mae's murder. Similes can often be overdone, in fact, a recent book I finished by Stuart Woods, Choke, eschewed them completely. Burke indulges in them quite successfully, and they bring a vividness to the ambiance that is quite startling; the scent of musty leaves, a fetid swamp and dank bar cascade the reader's senses. His latest book, [book:White Dove in the Morning], which I purchased and am reading as an e-book, takes place during the Civil War; historical fiction is not his usual milieu, but this is excellent.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dave chases down his mother's killers. Story is set in Louisiana with typical Burke writing.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maybe I'm getting used to his Robincheaux books (this is the 10th I've read), but I see formula sticking its boring head throiugh this story. It's still a good piece of fiction because Burke is an unusally good writer.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A little disjointed to start but it turned into a page turner. Once again Robicheaux deals with the maelstrom of south La as he tries to keep his act together day to day. This book also highlights Cletus Purcel a little more than previous novels and that is a good thing. A great sense of place is Burke's bayou..
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I probably should not have read this book. A friend of mine insisted that I try one more of the Dave Robicheaux books. I have read 5 of James Lee Burke's books before this one and only liked the first one I read. He is a very capable author and can use words in a very effective way. But the Dave Robicheaux series has a sameness to them that has worn me out. The books are pretty much the same each time, a psychopath that is threatening some poor girl and Dave is having to battle the crooked and/or stupid police to save lower Louisiana. The villians are always without redemption and to some degree they have to be or we would easily recognize that Dave, and especially his friend Cletus, are criminals themselves. This one has the added drama of Dave's mother who was killed by someone years ago after she abandoned Dave to a life lived with his brutal, alcoholic father. They are the first set of killers without a conscious. Then there is the psychopath that is brought in to kill a prositiute who ends up trying to court Dave's daughter. Then there are the two black girls that were molested by the psychopath next door that one of them is on death row for killing. There are a lot of women being molested, taken advantage of, and even killed by a whole herd of both indigenous and invading psychopaths. And it is up to Dave and Clete to defend them in book after book. It makes you wonder after awhile why Dave doesn't move to Montana like James Lee Burke did. There probaly are only half again as many psychopaths in Montana as there are in Louisiana. The major redeeming quality in this book is that it did give me a nomination for Dumbest Scene Award of all the books I read in 2008 for the scene that starts on page 255 (First Edition). It lost out to a scene in The Pale Blue Eye by Louis Bayard. But it was a very close vote.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5James Lee Burke never lets me down. Love the Dave Robicheaux series!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Recovering alcoholic and police detective Dave Robicheaux is on a quest to save convicted killer Letty Labiche from death row. During the investigation, he learns that his mother may have been murdered by police many years ago and that his teenage daughter is being pursued by a psychopath. The pacing is fast, the story is tightly woven, and the reader is in for a great ride!Susan| Aug 16, 2007 | edit |