Rating: 
Summary: A delightful tough guy
Review: David Robichaux is a hardbitten cop from the Louisiana bayous. His adventures usually involve people or incidents from his past coming back to cause a problem. This time a boyhood friend turned Mafioso may be behind the death of several women. In addition, Dave is being visited by the ghost of John Bell Hood, a Civil War general. The tough alcoholic cop also has an drunken Hollywood star foist upon him and his family-the lovely Bootsy and the always amusing Alafair. In the end, Dave finds himself rushing to save Alafair from the clutches of a pedophile who has taken her hostage. Burke's prose is as descriptive as ever and his conversations as hard-boiled as can be. If you enjoy Robert Parker and his Spenser, Burke's detective is like the Spenser of old-before the stories became endless wisecracks hung on a miniscule plot.
Rating:
Summary: good, but the scenes with the confederates are a bit much
Review: Ever since I was required to read Black Cherry Blues for a writing class at the University of Iowa's Writers Workshop, I have been fan of James Lee Burke. This book is not disappointing. Detective Dave Robicheaux is in fine form, doing ace investigative work. There are some great characters - Rosie Gomez, an entirely likeable FBI agent, and Elrod Sykes, the chronically drunk actor. There are also some great bad guys - Julie Balboni, Dave's childhood acquaintance, and his crew. The Louisiana scenery is beautifully described, as is the Cajun grub they are always eating. BUT! Dave keeps having these discussions with these Confederate soldiers that really mess up the book. They keep appearing in the swamp - hence the book's title. Worth reading - but skip over the italicized conversations with the past
Rating: 
Summary: Will definitely continue this series!
Review: I don't have the first five books in this series, so I started with this one. I have to say, I was hooked. I enjoyed Burke's insights into and references to Dave's past. Dave's new partner, Rosie Gomez, was standup, and Dave's 'visions' and continuing dialogue with a dead confederate soldier is what really held my attention. This is a definite must read, and I hope the other books in this series are as good.
Rating: 
Summary: Best Dave Robicheaux Book?
Review: I don't know, I sure did like it. On one hand, I agree with other reviewers that the ghost soldiers might seem a bit much - in hind sight. At the time I was reading the book I loved the extra touch. I would have to say I enjoyed this book most of all the Burke stories I have read so far. You might try to read them in order, otherwise you learn things that are supposed to surprise you in the earlier books.
Rating:
Summary: Best Dave Robicheaux Book?
Review: I don't know, I sure did like it. On one hand, I agree with other reviewers that the ghost soldiers might seem a bit much - in hind sight. At the time I was reading the book I loved the extra touch. I would have to say I enjoyed this book most of all the Burke stories I have read so far. You might try to read them in order, otherwise you learn things that are supposed to surprise you in the earlier books.
Rating: 
Summary: Worst lead ever
Review: I don't understand how these novels keep selling. Dave Robicheaux has got to be one of the worst main characters in a mystery novel that I've ever encountered. The man is about as interesting as a bowl of rice, and he spends more time drinking lemonade, waxing poetic about society and commenting on the coolness of the air than solving mysteries. I've read a lot of different mystery writers, and their detectives all have something in common: they are all very assertive when they're trying to solve the mystery. Robicheaux is the only one I've ever read that actually seems not to care one way or the other. Whenever someone comes to him with information that might help his case, he avoids them and makes a lame excuse why he can't see them. And the other characters worship the ground he walks on, even though he is never anything but coarse, rude, and inhospitable to them, especially if they need his help. He is completely unsympathetic towards friends of his that are drunks, even though he was a lush himself. You can only take so much of a guy who tries to feel superior to everyone around him by condescending to them and acting like they just crawled out of his toilet bowl.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic.
Review: I was amused at the reader above who ripped Burke for "waxing on" about a natural setting. Uh, that's a consistent theme of good writers - the ability to describe their surroundings in an original, compelling manner. In my opinion Burke is one of the great writers of our time. Too many folks nowadays are content to read uninspiring books bereft of moving language. Mystifies me.
Bottom line: If you want to read a series of books that feature fantastic writing, engaging characters, sparkling dialogue and a likeable but very human protagonist, read Burke's Robicheaux series - you'll find yourself reading a number of excerpts again and again, marvelling at his masterful style. If you want to prattle on at the water cooler about a yawn-inducing "best-seller" that doesn't contain a single memorable piece of writing, go waste your money on the "best-selling", formulaic tripe spewed by the likes of Sparks, Crichton, Grisham, Clancy, etc...or just watch some MTV for an equal measure of empty, immediate gratification.
Rating:
Summary: he write with all five senses.......
Review: If you are unfamiliar with this author, this book would be an interesting introduction to the Dave Robicheaux novels by Burke. Burke writes with all five senses in mind. The descriptions of the Southern Louisiana will make you thirst for a sweet tea. The plot revolves around a possible serial murderer of young girls. It also involves the mafia infiltrating his locale through a Hollywood movie making event. The two may be connected. When Dave Robicheaux begins to see Confederate soldiers, and has conversations with them, you wonder, was it Dave Robicheaux' car accident, was it alcohol, or has Mr. Burke opted for a science fantasy turn of events. (No, it is not the latter!) This was an extremely well done novel, not his best of the Dave Robicheaux novels, but still very good. If you haven't read other of James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux novels, anytime is a good time to start. If you enjoy Southern Detective/Police mysteries, these will not dissapoint you.
Rating:
Summary: hot, steamy and dark
Review: James Lee Burke always smacks right up against the crossover with "literature". His words carry you along until you are there feeling the oppressive Southern humidity oozing around you. I always feel like I am stationed back in Charleston South Carolina on a hot day. The man can write. James Lee Burke is one of the very few authors who can convey accurately exactly what it is like to be a drunk or a recovering drunk. Dave could fit in any meeting anywhere. Burke weaves it into the plots smoothly. Dave is Dave and he shares any recovering drunks worry of "What did I do to myself when I was drinking? And when will it show up?" In Electric Mists time gets suspended. Dave is working on cases tied to the past when he starts to think his drinking must have done some damage to his brain. He is understress and part of that is the threat to his family. He suspects he has "lost" it and the damage done by Alcohol is showing up under his stress. He feels he might be hallucinating. He is meeting with Confederate troops from the past. They seem real but they can't be for they have been dead for years. He chalks it up to his prior drinking bringing out these characters to discuss his case with him. After all they can't be real. Ghosts aren't real. If they are he is attune to something defying the reality in which he exists but if they aren't he has damage that will alter that reality anyway. A cop can't hallucinate and be a cop. As he searches for the answers the Confederates messages get more urgent to him. Past pulls on past and the far past until the final climax. Brain Damaged hallucinations? Dave is smart enough when he knows to keep the answer to himself for after all the past is past.
Rating:
Summary: Robicheaux's melancholic moods, in full swing.
Review: James Lee Burke's creation, Dave Robicheaux, is a perfect Everyman. He struggles with demons - his own, and those of others. He is an excellently flawed man, a man of great strengths, towering weaknesses, and deep melancholy: his humanity bleeds from evgery page. In the Electric Mist With Confederate Dead gives us a better, and deeper, insight into Burke's Everyman. The story purports to be a mystery / thriller, and is designated as such by Amazon. It is, of course, much more, and much less, than that. The mystery is satisfying, of course. Mr. Burke doesn't know how to write a bad mystery. But it's a side-bar to what the book really is: a series of character studies. There's Robicheaux, of course. The story is told in the first person, so the reader is swept into his psyche from the first page. There's Bootsie and Alafair, the people closest to Robicheaux - and the people he often feels are the furthest from him. There's Clete Purcell, his psychotic, sweaty, shambling drunken hulk of a partner. There are the figures from his past, who return to haunt him. And there is, of course, the ghost of the Confederate General with whome Robicheaux confers, and exposes not only himself, but the entire landscape of characters. Speaking of which - the Louisiana landscape is as much a character as any of the others. The dust, the heat, the colours, the odours, the taste of the land play as large a part as any human in the book. Mr Burke has been writing the best prose in popular American fiction for the past ten years, if not longer. He has always been a superb writer, making every word perform well above its potential. And in this book, In the Electric Mist With Confederate Dead, he has written one of his finest works.
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