Rating: 
Summary: THE BEST YET!
Review: Homicide detective, Dave Robicheaux, and his side-kick, private investigator, Clete Purcel are looking for Zipper Clum, a pimp who may have information to spare the life of death-row inmate, Letty Labiche. Upon finding him, Zipper makes a shocking accusation, one that will chill Robicheaux to the core.Dave's mother was a "whore", who was killed in the sixties, and according to Zipper, she was killed by police officers. Dave begins his own investigation into his mother's death, while still trying to find evidence that can spare Letty's life, but with witnesses on BOTH cases being killed, he realizes these two cases may be impossible, and at the same time he must go head to head with a killer who will stop at nothing to keep the truth buried. This is the best entry yet, in the masterful Dave Robicheaux series. "Purple Cane Road" is well-written, and suspenseful throughout, it is peopled with colorful, and exciting characters, and maintains a sense of realism until the end. James Lee Burke writes the kind of novels readers can get lost in, every sentence flows, while the plot boils to it's stunning conclusion. A MUST read! Nick Gonnella
Rating:
Summary: ...just getting better
Review: James Lee Burke is a wonderful writer whose work just keeps getting better. The graceful, economical way he lays the words down -- a lot like Hemingway -- I feel like I am in his Louisiana. Not the real one, of course, but that place that's been made in Burke's mold of flowers and scents and breezes. Terrifically well done.
Rating:
Summary: as usual, James Lee Burke delivers
Review: A few years ago, i was lucky enough to stumble upon a book reading by some guy named James Lee Burke. He read the first chapter of a Cajun Detective thriller and i was hooked. we (the audience) begged him to read two more chapters. the beauty of Burke's writing is the carefully crafted gorgeous run on sentences (amazing in their delicacy of word choices) contrasted with the violence that spurts from his finely developed characters. Purple Cane Road is the 17th (?) of his novels and almost perfect. (More on "almost" in a second). He brings to bear familiar characters (Bootsie, Batist, Alafair, Cletus Purcell, the Sherriff), but ties it to a core value of Burke's: family. Robicheaux, in the course of a typically brutal "investigation" by Clete, his best friend, hears that his mother was murdered by detectives from the New Orleans Police Department and that she was a hooker. While Robicheaux realizes that his mother was not a queen, he is shaken. A whore? Murdered? Murdered by the NOPD? Luckily Robicheaux is still on the wagon or we would see him swirl into drink, despair... His AA outlook saves him. Okay, I was disappointed in the lack of exploration of some of the characters. They are introduced but not fully explored -- if I had not read previous Robicheaux novels, they would have seemed hurried in their introduction. On a scale of 1 to 10, the styling of the book gets a 9.5 -- the prose, the evocation of the scenes, the way i could practically smell the sea air/salt... On a scale of 1 to 10, the action is a 10. Brutal, but realistic. One item surprised me: Dave rarely talks about the daily life of being a police officer. In this novel, we get a few paragraphs on how difficult (the things you see, the people you interact with, the smell of it...) it can be to be a cop. Whenever I finish a James Lee Burke novel or watch NYPD Blue, I think, Man, I wish I could craft something as clear, true and compelling as this. While travelling through Missoula, MT this summer, I almost looked up James Lee Burke in the phone book, to call and say, "Thanks for creating such a robust, honest, tough character." But then I thought, heck, if he's like Robicheaux, he doesn't need my interruption. He wrote the book because he had demons to exercise and wanted to help people -- his written civil duty. Buy it tonight. Don't plan on sleeping much.
Rating:
Summary: One of the Better Entries in the Series
Review: In PURPLE CANE ROAD Dave Robicheaux is essentially working on two separate cases simultaneously. He is trying to get enough evidence to stop Letty Labiche's scheduled execution in Angola Penitentiary and at the same time Dave is also hunting for the killers many years ago of his mother, Mae Guillory. The story moves fast with plenty of action and enough colorful characters to keep it interesting. The latter include the usual Burke types such as prostitutes, pimps, a populist politician, corrupt police and just plain hardened criminals. Robicheaux's long-time friend and associate Clete Purcell defies description. We have to look long and hard to find any normal people in this book. The best part of the story focuses on Robicheaux's search for the killers of his mother. It is here that Burke gives us another glimpse of Robicheaux's complex nature and we learn still more about his troubled past.
Rating: 
Summary: Purple Cane Road weaves a passionate tale.
Review: Webmaster & I always eagerly grab Author Burke's latest off the library shelf & hurry home to return to Dave Robichaux's world of swamps & sunsets, boogie players & lowlifes, an ordinary man with an extraordinary sense of honor & compassion with a recovering wife he adores, a teenage daughter on the verge of rebellion & a home & fishing business his father built with his bare hands. Dave Robicheaux is a Vietnam Veteran & a New Iberia Parish police detective who has only recently dragged himself out of the bottle. When he gets a call to check out an isolated house he finds his long time friend Clete Purcel throwing lowlifes off the roof into an ancient oak tree. While Dave attempts to sort out the fracas, Zipper Clum, a well-known pimp, squints at him & utters a horrifying statement that sends Dave into a swamp of pain & into the past of New Orleans law enforcement, a hive of corruption no one wants to disturb. A James Lee Burke book is always a maze of stories where past & present melt into each other & where the Louisiana land is as much a player in the story as are the people. The bayous come alive with colors, sounds, scents & seasons. Fascinating reading - as are all Burke's books.
Rating:
Summary: been there!
Review: born on bayou Teche, NI general to be exact. Reading Burke is like a primer to life down there. As Dave negotiates his was up and down Acadiana, and to BR and NO, anybody who's lived there will know Burke's credibility is money. The dialogue is on target, too. i can hear my Paw Paw talking to me, yeah. all of the novels' plots are cookie cutter, no doubt. but for me reading JLB is like going home. and i'm hongry, me. i want a po boy at duffys, a central grocery mufaletta, some beignets, and some crabs out at cypremort point.
Rating: 
Summary: Not competitive with the best
Review: I don't know where all the laudatory reviews are coming from. This book isn't particularly well written. Burke's writing is unmemorable, his similes and descriptions frequently lame. The book isn't particularly well plotted. The plot is fairly complex, but implausible. The protagonist, Dave Robicheaux, is a homicide cop in a Louisiana parish outside New Orleans. He does much of his work in the company of a thug private investigator named Clete. Clete is just a transparent device invented by Burke to allow Robicheaux to engage in flagrantly illegal activities and violations of the rights of private citizens. It is obvious that this situation wouldn't be tolerated by any law enforcement agency, regardless how corrupt or how good-ol-boy Southern. Louisiana may have more than its share of a history of political corruption, but the percentage of outright crooks in both the police departments and the elected officials in this book defies credulity. It is similarly implausible that an ordinary cop from outside New Orleans would be such good buddies with the governor and that his wife would be an old friend of the Attorney General. The book isn't particularly well characterized. Robicheaux is a recovering alcoholic (a remarkably imaginative and original touch, isn't it?). Very few of the characters come to life. One who does is Robicheaux's buddy Clete - but it's not hard to create a character who's nothing but a bully and a thug. The other is Johnny Remeta, a hired hit man with an unusual combination of psychoses. Considering how many other writers of hard-boiled detective novels there are out there, I see no reason to read Burke. Read this, and then read anything by Dennis Lehane (for example), and the difference is dramatic.
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