James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux novels have been a source of entertainment and excitement to me for many years. Burke has been particularly prolific in recent years (he even created a new series featuring Billy Bob Holland) and The Tin Roof Blowdown is the sixteenth entry in the on-going story of the policeman from New Iberia, Louisiana. Through the years he has lost a couple of wives, gained another one, adopted a daughter (who is, in this most recent book, writing her own mystery novel); he’s seen tragedy after tragedy, and had his home destroyed. His strength of purpose and his courage have kept him going. Aided and abetted by his old partner Clete Purcell, and encouraged by his chief Helen Soileau, he chugs along like a steam engine in a electronic world.
This latest adventure seems to serve two purposes. It chronicles the latest criminal activities in the parish, but it also details the incredible disaster that was Hurricane Katrina, painting a shocking and vibrant picture of the events that unfolded in the real world occupied by his fictional characters. The reportage we received in Canada was horrific, but as I read Burke’s first-hand account of the carnage of Katrina, I was brought close to tears. When have you responded so viscerally to a mystery novel?
That’s the strength of Burke’s writing. He has never been one to write formulaic “mystery novels,” never depended on a pattern. His books have crimes and criminals, clues, violence, and hints, but they also have solid character development, and keen observations of the human condition, and all its failings (and successes). There are good guys and bad guys in Burke’s novels, certainly, but they sometimes exist within the same character. Purcell, and Robicheaux have dark sides, and the mob bosses have families who love them.
The Tin Roof Blowdown deals with looting, rape, murder, pure evil, situational ethics, and love and devotion. It’s all boiled together in a jambalaya that keeps you coming back for more. And when it ends you are satisfied, but still wouldn’t mind another bite. It tastes so good.
I read an advance uncorrected reader’s proof, and it had plenty of typos, but I still couldn’t put it down. If the previous Robicheaux book was a bit perfunctory, The Tin Roof Blowdown is so filled with passion it more than makes up for it. And James Lee Burke shows himself a master of plotting and character, one who lifts his books out of the “detective” genre into, well, into one heck of a book. Don’t miss it!
(Simon & Schuster, 2007)
