Rating: 
Summary: Like a trip back to Louisiana.
Review: I spent my early adolescent years in southeastern Louisiana and have a lot of fond memories of this uniquely charming piece of America. Burke's Dave Robicheaux never fails to transport me back to the gumbo restaurant in a trailer, the trek through a Morgan City swamp that brought me awfully close to an alligator, and Pete Fountain's jazz club at the Hilton. Simply put, Burke knows Louisiana and how to evoke it.Cadillac Jukebox is overall a good read. It's basically a tale of the dark motives that drive people across the line from good to bad. Unfortunately, Burke let the story get too complicated. I wish I had made a chart of the characters as I read the book, because keeping track of who's who got confusing. The storyline also spreads out to the point that staying on top of it becomes a chore. I thought the story got formulaic at points. The mythological symbolism in the fate of the husband-and-wife antagonists was over the top, like a classical bass drum roll at the end of a Warren Storm tune. But Burke didn't miss a beat with his characters. I was scared by Aaron Crown and Mookie Zerrang, I felt sympathy for Buford LaRose and enmity toward his wife, and I felt like I'd known Batist for a long time. Dave Robicheaux was as polite, resolute, and conflicted as ever.
Rating: 
Summary: Half-Way Through, He Just Lost Me
Review: I've heard such good things about Burke, so I was pretty enthusiastic about reading Cadillac Jukebox. But for all my enthusiasm, this book just didn't do it for me. Burke's natural writing talent is obvious, and he grabbed my attention right away. The characters are all very human and real, it's a great setting, and things click along at a brisk pace. I found myself zipping my way through this book eagerly awaiting the next surprise. And then, about halfway through the book I just got lost. A thousand different things had happened to Dave Robicheaux, his cohorts, and his enemies, and though each scene was written well, it just wasn't coming together as a whole. I realized that I either didn't know enough because I hadn't read any of the previous books, or Burke was just all over the place. Over all a disappointment, but since this is my first Burke book, I plan to give him another chance by reading the first of the Dave Robicheaux series.
Rating: 
Summary: Jargon Jungle
Review: Interesting book, but there was SO much jargon -- cop talk, drug slang, and cajun words, that some of the time I didn't even know what they were talking about. The book should provide the reader with a glossary of terms.
Rating: 
Summary: Another satisfying delivery by an outstanding writer
Review: It isn't often that I have to interrupt my reading and find my companion so I can read passages to him to "share," but this happens a lot with James Lee Burke's books. He has an absolutely beautiful way with descriptions and emotions that go right to my heart. I finished this book in about a day of reading, and even now, two weeks later, can't get the picture of Bootsie standing at the kitchen counter drating potatoes. How's that for memorable writing! Please, please don't abandon this series, Mr. Burke. I want to see Alafair (sp?) grow up!
Rating:
Summary: word candy for crackers
Review: James Lee Burke's Cadillac Jukebox is a fine piece of suspense fiction, but it trades on rough language and violent situations. It is a sort of word candy for crackers, because it portrays Southern macho men the way they would like to think about themselves. In some ways it reminds me of the old John D. MacDonald mystery novels of the 1980s or Sam Spade. The language in Burke's novel is colorful, the characters are rich in local color, and the plot is totally blasted. I guess you don't need to bother yourself to read a novel if all you want is reality.
Rating:
Summary: word candy for crackers
Review: James Lee Burke's Cadillac Jukebox is a fine piece of suspense fiction, but it trades on rough language and violent situations. It is a sort of word candy for crackers, because it portrays Southern macho men the way they would like to think about themselves. In some ways it reminds me of the old John D. MacDonald mystery novels of the 1980s or Sam Spade. The language in Burke's novel is colorful, the characters are rich in local color, and the plot is totally blasted. I guess you don't need to bother yourself to read a novel if all you want is reality.
Rating:
Summary: Burke, as usual, has that wonderful flair for imagery.
Review: James Lee Burke, once again, brings his characters vividly alive. Dave is once again fighting the bad guys plus his own problems and, once again, Clete Purcell is there to back him up and pull him up by the emotional bootstraps when needed. You just cannot beat Burke's writing when it comes to the imagery of everything that is happening in his novels. Wonderful!!
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful characters, great plot, great writing.
Review: One of my favorite top five writers. This book was outstanding. You do not want to skim books written by James Lee Burke
Rating:
Summary: leaner, truer than his last book
Review: The sensual strength of the prose here is tense and powerful.
His last book, Burning Angel, felt loose and undisciplined,
relative to this book and to Black Cherry Blues, which is, in
my opinion, his best. Burke's detective, Dave Robicheaux, questions, wonders, risks, leaps, gets involved here - life
happens *to* him. This is one of Burke's gifts, allowing the
chaos to touch his characters, instead of concentrating on showing how his characters touch the chaos. This is a good
read.
Rating:
Summary: He's all over the place
Review: This is my first James Lee Burke book, and I am also from New Orleans. This book takes place mostly in Lafayette/New Iberia in Louisiana, about 2 hours away from N.O. where the beautiful cajun/acadian culture is in full force. There is no doubt he has mastered the cajun-acadiana gendre and his descriptions of the area are excellent - you can almost feel the humidity falling on you as the pages turn.
Trouble is, even I had to stop and ask my husband (who lived in Lafayette in college) what some of the words/phrases meant.
There's a whole mess of characters that I truly found hard to keep straight - especially in the first half of the book. About 4 - 5 of the characters were no problem. Once I made an extra effort to commit to memory all of the other characters' names and personalities, I was able to follow better.
Dave Robicheaux, the main character, is someone you can't help but like. Some of the other characters you can't help but hate, and others you can't help but feel sorry for them. Burke takes on some heavy subject matter: racism, Louisiana politics, etc., and I commend him for that. But his story-telling could stand to be cleaner - I felt like a kite in the wind at times during this story.
The beautiful and accurate descriptions of the people/scenery as well as the charming & complicated Dave Robicheaux will probably make me try one more of Burke's books. I think he is very talented, but truly this felt like a first time author for the first half of the read.
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