From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Superb writing and a throbbing pace lift two-time Edgar-winner Burke's powerful, many-layered 14th Dave Robicheaux novel (after 2003's
Last Car to Elysian Fields), which involves venal and arrogant members of a wealthy family that can trace its lineage to fifth-century France as well as the machinations of the New Orleans mafia. A conversation between Robicheaux and a dying childhood friend about Ida Durbin, a young prostitute that Robicheaux's half-brother, Jimmie, loved and lost in the late 1950s, sets the ex-homicide detective on a path that eventually leads to several gruesome killings and his near downfall. Unemployed, his wife dead, his daughter in college, Robicheaux rejoins the New Iberia, La., sheriff's department at the urging of Sheriff Helen Soileau, who needs an extra hand as the murders mount. While the tendrils of the sometimes rambling plot unfold, Robicheaux and his impulsive former police partner, PI Clete Purcell, seek retribution for injustices caused by a wide range of corrupt villains. Burke masterfully combines landscape and memory in a violent, complex story peopled by sharply defined characters who inhabit a lush, sensual, almost mythological world.
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It's easy to see why Will Patton's voice is synonymous with the Dave Robicheaux series. There is a soft, soothing sound in Patton's Louisiana accent that's perfect for the atmospheric imagery and poetic details. There's also a darker timbre in Patton's voice that reveals the weight placed on our hero's shoulders and, when required, describes the evil that the characters mete out to each other. This riveting tale, built around ancient memories--a 1950s romance with a New Orleans prostitute and a dying cop's memory of a blood-stained hotel room--is a study in revisionism, how and why we romanticize, sanitize, or destroy the past in order to survive in the present. R.W.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine--
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