Rating: 
Summary: What a terrific book!
Review: My dad listens to a ton of audio books and James lee Burke is at the top of his list; he has most of Burke's books on tape. I listened for months about how good this series was until I just had to give it a try. I ordered the whole series and a few days later a bunch of paperback books were piled high on my desk. Now, a couple of months later I'm on Dixie City Jam and I'm not looking back. Dave is one of the most self-destructive characters I've run across, but that's what makes the book so engrossing. Neon Rain is a great mystery read
Rating: 
Summary: On The Way To Burnout
Review: New Orleans Detective Dave Robicheau finds the body of a black prostitute named Lovelace Deshotels while fly-fishing in Bayou Lafourche. Robichaux believes Lovelace is a murder victim although the Cataouatche Parish sheriff is treating the case as an accident. He begins to get interested in the case even though it is out of his jurisdiction and with the help of his partner, Cletus Purcel, is led to drug boss Julio Segura from Nicaragua and Didoni Giacomi of New Orleans organized crime. Robicheaux's task is complicated by the fact that his half-brother Jimmy is a friend of Giacomi.This book is the first in the Dave Robicheaux series and the finale for Dave on the New Orleans police force. He retires due to burnout. THE NEON RAIN is one of the better entries in the Dave Robicheaux series.
Rating:
Summary: On The Way To Burnout
Review: New Orleans Detective Dave Robicheau finds the body of a black prostitute named Lovelace Deshotels while fly-fishing in Bayou Lafourche. Robichaux believes Lovelace is a murder victim although the Cataouatche Parish sheriff is treating the case as an accident. He begins to get interested in the case even though it is out of his jurisdiction and with the help of his partner, Cletus Purcel, is led to drug boss Julio Segura from Nicaragua and Didoni Giacomi of New Orleans organized crime. Robicheaux's task is complicated by the fact that his half-brother Jimmy is a friend of Giacomi. This book is the first in the Dave Robicheaux series and the finale for Dave on the New Orleans police force. He retires due to burnout. THE NEON RAIN is one of the better entries in the Dave Robicheaux series.
Rating: 
Summary: An OK diversion but dated
Review: Reading the Neon Rain by James Lee Burke was only ok but diverting nonetheless. Reading Doug Greenberg's most excellent review here at Amazon hit the nail on the head. Jame Lee Burke's writing style was quite good but the plot became rather anticlimatic and too one dimensional. True, one has to read this definitive first book in the Robicheaux series to fully appreciate the later books. Robicheaux reminds me of John D. MacDonald's famous detective, Travis McGee (who is the definitive hardboild protagonist and is way hard to beat). Robicheaux lives on a houseboat in New Orleans instead of Florida and is fighting his own personal demons with alcohol, injustice and getting even. The VietNam veteran angle has been done to death, but in this outing is somewhat tolerable by the excellent narrative descriptions. Personally I had a bit of a problem with our hero waxing poetic about the Confederacy and the South that looses me, a Northern city boy. To me there was nothing romantic about the civil war, and a character that seems to honor that (Confederate) memory, and want to fight for the little guy is a bit of a contradiction in terms that needs more exploring. The reviews for the Purple Cane Road looks more promising and is next on my list and should be a better read. Kindly look for my review in the coming weeks.
Rating:
Summary: An OK diversion but dated
Review: Reading the Neon Rain by James Lee Burke was only ok but diverting nonetheless. Reading Doug Greenberg's most excellent review here at Amazon hit the nail on the head. Jame Lee Burke's writing style was quite good but the plot became rather anticlimatic and too one dimensional. True, one has to read this definitive first book in the Robicheaux series to fully appreciate the later books. Robicheaux reminds me of John D. MacDonald's famous detective, Travis McGee (who is the definitive hardboild protagonist and is way hard to beat). Robicheaux lives on a houseboat in New Orleans instead of Florida and is fighting his own personal demons with alcohol, injustice and getting even. The VietNam veteran angle has been done to death, but in this outing is somewhat tolerable by the excellent narrative descriptions. Personally I had a bit of a problem with our hero waxing poetic about the Confederacy and the South that looses me, a Northern city boy. To me there was nothing romantic about the civil war, and a character that seems to honor that (Confederate) memory, and want to fight for the little guy is a bit of a contradiction in terms that needs more exploring. The reviews for the Purple Cane Road looks more promising and is next on my list and should be a better read. Kindly look for my review in the coming weeks.
Rating:
Summary: A Weak Start To A Terrific Series
Review: The best way to read any literary series, including those involving hard-boiled detectives, is to pick them up in the order the books were written. That way, the individual stories take on greater meaning as part of the ongoing evolution of a principal character as he or she develops and changes. In light of this, it's tempting to recommend that prospective readers of James Lee Burke's Louisiana-based Dave Robicheaux series should start with *The Neon Rain*, which sets the stage for the numerous subsequent books. Anyone who reads Burke's prose should be impressed by his unusual gift for verbal description. His ability to paint word pictures of places, characters, moods, and feelings is exquisite, and for this reason alone a reader might plow through the entire story. However, the plot construction of *The Neon Rain* is so anemic that I would not be surprised if many of those who read this New Orleans-based story simply refuse to go on to the subsequent stories set in New Iberia. This is a shame, since most of these later works are excellent mysteries in which the stories are far more complex and engrossing. In this novel, and to some extent in all of them, Burke employs a formulaic approach in which his protagonist veers from crisis to self-inflicted crisis (in pursuit of righteousness and justice, of course), with the narrative invariably punctuated both by breathtaking descriptions of places and people (and also meals), and periodic episodes involving bloody mayhem. After a while it gets pretty predictable; in his later works, however, Burke develops story lines that are sufficiently interesting that he can make the formula work, at least most of the time. It should be noted also that Burke demonstrates throughout his *corpus* an admirable sympathy with the downtrodden and disadvantaged both in America and abroad, along with a sneering dislike of the rich and powerful. This political aspect of his writing is certainly unusual within the detective genre, and for me, at least, is highly refreshing. So, should people seeking a great detective novel read pick up *The Neon Rain*? Yes, but ONLY if they resolve beforehand to view it as a kind of "prequel" to the higher quality Robicheaux novels that follow.
Rating:
Summary: Simply the Best Mystery Series!
Review: The David Robicheaux novels of James Lee Burke are simply some of the best fiction out there. You will be hard pressed to find a more exciting, more thought provoking, well written, and interesting series. Neon Rain is not the best book of the series. In my opinion the best are In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead and Dixie City Jam. If you are like me you are thinking of reading this book after you have read some of the later novels. I started at Dixie City Jam and worked my way back. So I agree that in the scheme of things Neon Rain is not the best in the series, but it is a great start to a great thing. To read about David as a cop in New Orleand working with Clete. To see how it all began. So in short, this is a great series. I recommend reading some of the later books and going back to this one.
Rating:
Summary: Neon Rain: Burke true heir to Hammett
Review: There is only one other mystery writer alive today who can approach the genius of Burke and that is Dennis Lehane. If you have not had the pleasure of discovering Burke, do so with this, the first of his 11, soon to be 12, novels starring the alchoholic, Cajun detective from New Iberia and The Big Easy, David Robicheaux. Dark and edgy and existential, Robicheaux inhabits a world of demons both internal and external. With the brutality of a Peckenpah film and the honesty of Sartre essay, this detective puts the formulaic best sellers to shame. If you want to remember why you read Ross McDonald (Lou Archer) and John D (Travis Magee) then do what I'm doing: start with Neon Rain and work your way through in order. The rewards are like a Saturday at the movies when it was a dime and the serials were as good as the main feature and the Duncan Yo Yo expert could walk the dog and rock the cradle. Drop the best sellers, unless you're reading The Last Empire or The Corrections and pick up James Lee Burke. You won't regret it.
Rating:
Summary: Neon Rain: Burke true heir to Hammett
Review: There is only one other mystery writer alive today who can approach the genius of Burke and that is Dennis Lehane. If you have not had the pleasure of discovering Burke, do so with this, the first of his 11, soon to be 12, novels starring the alchoholic, Cajun detective from New Iberia and The Big Easy, David Robicheaux. Dark and edgy and existential, Robicheaux inhabits a world of demons both internal and external. With the brutality of a Peckenpah film and the honesty of Sartre essay, this detective puts the formulaic best sellers to shame. If you want to remember why you read Ross McDonald (Lou Archer) and John D (Travis Magee) then do what I'm doing: start with Neon Rain and work your way through in order. The rewards are like a Saturday at the movies when it was a dime and the serials were as good as the main feature and the Duncan Yo Yo expert could walk the dog and rock the cradle. Drop the best sellers, unless you're reading The Last Empire or The Corrections and pick up James Lee Burke. You won't regret it.
Rating:
Summary: A relatively safe step in a journey of hideous beauty.
Review: This is the first Dave Robichaux novel, and arguably the weakest. Even so, it is worth reading in its own lights. Mr. Burke has extended the hard-boiled mystery in a way that satisfies the taste for nostalgia and the hunger for danger. Robichaux is a detective with an ugly past, a love for simpler times, and an over-developed sense of justice. His origins on the social borderlines give him a jaundiced view of the Louisiana upper classes and deep sympathy for the lower classes, but no patience at all for the violent, the greedy, or the abusive
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