Jolie Blon's Bounce

Rating:
Summary: his best yet
Review: i wrote previously-that i was about to read the book-and knew it would be great-well i've read it and burke has refined clete and dave to a fare thee well--their dialogue is foxhole real and the first chapter may well be the best written in a novel in the last 30 years or so--and those whose reviews stated that burke had to put new life into his series wish they could write this well--!the man gets better and better--thanks!

Rating:
Summary: Dark Series Continues: Jolie Blon's Bounce by Burke
Review: "That night I lay in the dark, sleepless, the trees outside swelling with the wind, the canopy in the swamp trembling with a ghostly white light from the lightening in the south. I had never felt more alone in my life. Once again, I burned, in almost a sexual fashion, to wrap my fingers around the grips and inside the steel guard of a heavy, high caliber pistol, to smell the acrid order of cordite, to tear loose from all the restraints that bound my life and squeezed the breath from my lungs.

And I knew what I had to do."

While I like James Lee Burke and admire his writing ability tremendously, his books usually bother me. His writings will never be confused with happy ever after endings and are full of characters that for the most part, are full of various stages of moral decay. He has an ability to gaze at the world and write about things that haunt us all. In his world, evil is a spectral presence and truly does lurk in the heart of most people. His latest book is even more in that vein with a strongly implied supernatural component to it.

Dave Robicheaux, a Police Detective in New Iberia, Louisiana has seen quite a lot of evil in the world. From the jungles of Vietnam, to the back alleys of New Orleans and now home in New Iberia, he has seen man and woman brutalize and kill total strangers as well as those they profess to love. One late spring day, he is called out to the scene of a brutal rape and murder. The initial suspect is Tee Bobby Hulin, a heavy drug user as well as an accomplished blues singer. While the evidence, what little there is, does point to him, Robicheaux does not believe he did it.

Robicheaux begins to investigate and begins to unravel a horrifying mess of interwoven racial ancestry by rape, murder, and greed. As he digs, he discovers a man known only as "Legion" to both the black and white population of New Iberia and who has haunted his nightmares since the age of twelve is deeply involved. Legion soon begins to haunt his waking hours as well and Deal begins to wonder is he is reachable and stoppable in a human way.

This is another complex and multi themed novel by James Lee Burke and features all the usual cast of characters familiar to readers of the series. Despite the fact that this is a long running series, the author manages to unveil new wrinkles not only in the Robicheaux character but as well in several of the other major characters. His long running characters are not the static unchanging cutouts seen in some nay other works, but instead constantly evolve and change based on experience just like real human beings.

At the same time, he is weaving various themes such as the nature of good and evil, are humans born evil, etc into the work. That ability along with his colorful prose and intense action make for interesting reading. This is another powerful book with a tremendous amount of sorrow and lament while at the same time a tremendous amount of inspiration concerning the ability of good people to endure the evil visited upon them through no fault of their own.

Rating:
Summary: Love the book, hate the ending
Review: Talk about mixed emotions. Burke's one of the best stylists in
American fiction at any level. His descriptions of New Orleans and Louisiana are lush and dead-on. Burke can put you right on the spot. The characters in the book are unique and Clete Purcell remains one of the best supporting characters (along with Spenser's Hawk) in crime fiction. However, the ending is just terrible. It's the worst ending I've ever read by a major novelist. You keep thinking that all the thugs and miscreants are going to converge at the end and it never comes off. Worse, you never learned who murdered a couple of people. This ending blows and Burke knows better. In the end the bad guy is struck by lightning -- and I don't believe I can ruin the ending by telling that. The denoument manages to ruin itself. If you like great prose, then this book gets it done. If you want a satisfying climax then read W. L. Ripley's "Springer's Gambit".

Rating:
Summary: Another great effort
Review: I have read most of James Burke's books and love them all. This is well written with great character development and interesting plots.

Rating:
Summary: Satisfying First Trip to the Bayou
Review: This was my introduction to James Lee Burke, and refers to the audio version. Actually, I enjoyed the reader of this audiobook about 98% of the time, but occasionally the Southern drawl was overdone to the point where it became difficult or impossible to decipher the words being spoken. Though the characters were new to me, Burke does a good job writing enough bits of background to gain some understanding of their character. Burke really does write in a style that draws you in to enjoying his descriptions of the Bayou, the trees and swamps, without feeling the story is dragging. When Burke's narrative digresses, there's always a link back to a character's background, motivation, or to building a sense of background atmosphere and history.
This certainly wouldn't be categorized as a forensic thriller, as there's a surprising shortage of "detecting" going on, but ultimately there are enough clues put together for a definitive solution to one murder. The second murder has a somewhat less satisfying resolution -- we "know" who the culprit is, but the proof just isn't there.
Legion, the evil character with vertical lines giving his face a distinctive appearance, meets an end that is a little bit quick, easy, and borders on mystical contrivance. I also found the medic, Sal, to play a role that provides a curious twist. Granted, Sal has been on the scene through much of the book, but then seems to come out of left field when his character is needed, then recedes back into mystery.
Despite these minor issues, I greatly enjoyed Jolie Blon's Bounce, and want to read more of Burke's titles featuring Dave Robicheaux and get to know these characters more. If I try another audiobook, I wouldn't mind a reader who's a little easier to understand and perhaps give more differentiation between voices of different characters.

Rating:
Summary: Edible, but neither fish nor fowl.
Review: "Joli Blon's Bounce" illustrates the strengths and weaknesses of James Lee Burke's apparent aspiration to meld genre fiction and lit'rature. This fusion of crime fiction and literary craftsmanship has its charms, but in some ways it produces work that is not consistently "up" to the standards of either literature or crime fiction. (The idea, quoted approvingly on the dust jacket of this book, that he is the "Faulkner of crime fiction" seems bizarre to me. Isn't that kind of like saying Home Depot is the Tiffany's of hardware stores?)

"Jolie Blon's Bounce" is perhaps Burke's most consistently literary effort to date. The pacing and balance are the most consistent of his work, the characters clearly drawn, and the evocation of mood and atmosphere very good.

But Burke does some things that he wouldn't get away with if he were aiming at the literary market, rather than the crime fiction market. For instance, how Legion meets his end--the resolution of the Good vs. Evil conflict--seems to me easy, cheesy, pretentious, and sophomoric. Really unsatisfying. I finished this one going, "Oh, don't tell me you really did that." (Note re "Faulkner of crime fiction"--Faulkner never used ad hoc magical realism or dei ex machina to develop or resolve plots.)

And Burke beats you over the head with the morals and insights of his story. In literature 101, they teach you, "Show, don't tell." That is, let the morals and meanings reveal themselves in the thoughts and actions of the characters, not in overt pronouncements. By violating that dictum, this book illustrates why it is good advice.

So while the prose is beautiful, the book leaves much to be desired as "art."

As for the crime fiction dimension of ths book, the detective/thriller plot is not very taut or riveting--and remains somewhat unclear even after the book has ended.

This book has several plot lines: (1) the rape and shotgun-murder of a teenage girl, (2) the bludgeoning death of a prostitute, (3) various activities of the embodiment of Evil, a seventy-four year old man named Legion, (4) Clete's involvements with a couple of different women, (5) both of whom are ex-girlfreinds of Perry LaSalle, scion of the grand Old Family of the parish, who also has shadowy connections with plot lines 1 and 3, though not with plot 2.

These plot lines do not entirely cohere and support each other. Like life, and unlike most genre fiction, more or less unrelated stuff happens to be happening at the same time in this book. Why, exactly, do we have these two different murders, and why does anyone in the book even think they have much to do with each other (they don't). And what's Legion doing in here, since he is never even suspected of having anything to do with either? And what do his relationships to LaSalle and to the prime suspects do to advance the suspense/thriller plot? (Answer: not much, if anything.)

And oddly, Dave doesn't actually do a whole lot of detecting--and why he decides that the murderer of the prostitute is who he is remains utterly beyond my comprehension. He gets in lots of fights and goes through lots of torments and personal tribulations--but unlike most genre fiction, this book doesn't turn on his finding clues, shrewdly putting together apparently-related matters to see the solution. About the only detecting he does is so obvious that anyone sees exactly what it means. Nothing shrewd here.

All of that being said, this book has its utility. If you find yourself wanting to read but not in the mood for the tight-wire tension and mind-twisting perplexities of the best crime fiction or the psychological subtleties and moral complexities of Serious Lit-ratoor, this book might fill the bill.

"Jolie Blon's Bounce" contains more sheer verbal delight than most genre fiction, and the emotional resonance has to do with more sophisticated matters of moral history--especially race and class injustice--than most genre fiction. This isn't just a woman-torturing, mistreated-by-his-mother psychopath titillating our prurience with his perversity, while the misunderstood loner detective whose personal life is in shambles seeks to stop him from striking again in spite of the stupidity of his bosses.

But with "Jolie Blon's Bounce," you don't have to work too hard to learn Important Lessons, or to divine deep insights. Such insight as is here is right on the surface, stated--and restated--altogether obviously. And it won't challenge or disturb anything of significance about your understanding of the world.

Rating:
Summary: Impressive
Review: Jolie Blon's Bounce is the first James Lee Burke novel I have ever read, so I can't compare it with his earlier work, complain it's not good enough, or rave that it's the best. What I can say is that as a stand alone novel, Jolie Blon's Bounce is very good. It's a dark, murky, evocative crime novel with a protagonist who sports many personality flaws, but who is still endearing in a hard-boiled way. The brutal murders of two young women in New Orleans bring back some brutal,haunting memories for Dave Robicheaux. Dave does not believe the prime suspect is guilty and must dig deep to find the truth. This novel is very well-written. I can see why Burke is so popular. Enjoy.

Rating:
Summary: Captures the "non-tourist" side of New Orleans
Review: When I used to live in Illinois, my favorite vacation places were New Orleans and Las Vegas. I ended up vacationing in Las Vegas about a dozen times, and eventually moved there. New Orleans, on the other hand, was visited a half dozen times, and each time the verdict was "Visit, yes, live there, definitely not". This book gives some great illustrations to back up that thinking.

Yes, the food is unsurpassed in New Orleans. In fact, it's my favorite form of cooking. The incredible influence of music on just about everybody just about turns the corner to make one one to be there more often. And nobody throws a party quite like this town. So what's the problem?

Well, the book will tell you, there is a staggering amount of dirt and garbage thrown about the town. I did not know that politicians will take money to have hazardous waste buried in the state, often in rural black areas. But I did experience the whopping 8+ percent sales tax, which includes food, which puts a big burden on the poor, while the wealthier get incredible tax breaks. They take a back seat to nobody when it comes to political corruption.

It's also a dangerous town. I know my new town has it's own problem, but New Orleans, while being transient, is also a port town, which adds to the potential undesirables it draws. When night falls on the city, many, many people are already camping out for the night, sleeping on the filthy sidewalks, often surrounded by trash. The murder rate is sky high. This really puts a strain on even the toughest tourist.

This is the New Orleans described in this book, which, by the way, is a pretty good, if gory murder mystery. Well, not exactly a mystery, because the bad guys are pretty much known, but the baddest of them all, a character named Legion, also shows another dark aspect of the city. This is the subjugation of blacks, who had it the roughest here during slave days, and still have some of the worst cards dealt to them out of any state in the country. The evil part that Legion plays in the story makes for fascinating reading while making a commentary about the area.

Please notice the four stars. While all the above may sound negative, it's not. The book is great because the author has laid out this type of world. The one that doesn't exist in the travel brochures, but is readily visible to any visitor.

Rating:
Summary: Audible version bites
Review: I listened to the audio version of this book. I invested about 400 of 800 or so minutes and I had to quit. And I very rarely quit a book, audio or hard copy. It was disjointed, and worse, it was dull. I had to keep reminding myself of what mystery the hero was trying to solve. Perhaps it was the narrator who slurred his words and sounded drunk. I have to give this audio book a big thumbs down.

Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful Read
Review: I found this latest installment of the Dave Robicheaux/Clete Purcel saga to be the most enjoyable yet. It is certainly the easiest of the series to follow. I must admit a decidedly tepid reaction to former Burke novels. This one, however, hits the mark. Laced with tongue-in-cheek humor, Burke keeps the pace flowing nicely in this novel. The atmosphere he creates is palpable and his characterizations again come across with no flaws.