Rating: 
Summary: Darkly and mysteriously wonderful
Review: When teenager Amanda Boudreau is murdered in New Iberia, Louisiana, the evidence points to Tee Bobby Hulin, a gifted musician but a crackhead and general ne'er-do-well. Detective Dave Robicheaux is not convinced, though. Then there is another murder, this time of the drug-addicted daughter of a local Mafia figure, and Tee Bobby is again implicated. Robicheaux still doubts the evidence and continues to investigate when he crosses paths with the mysterious and malevolent Legion Guidry, an elderly former plantation overseer. Robicheaux questions his own sanity when his instincts tell him that Legion is pure evil in human form.Meanwhile, Robicheaux's sidekick, Clete Purcell, is having woman troubles, and competition in the person of cracker ex-con Bible salesman Marvin Oates. Even Robicheaux's own attorney, Perry LaSalle, is behaving strangely in the wake of the two murders. They all have secrets and present different faces to different people, and it's up to Robicheaux to navigate the labyrinthe, pick out the necessary pieces, and put it all together. And who better than James Lee Burke to throw it all out there, knead it and meld it with his dark and menacing poetry, and then pull it all together with brilliant finesse. This may be Dave Robicheaux's darkest voyage yet but, boy, what a ride. The atmosphere, rife with human suffering and the nature of evil, is very intense and roiling with preternatural undercurrents, with an ending that is both shocking and just.
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