Customer Reviews

Last Car to Elysian Fields: A Dave Robicheaux Novel

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I bought this item because I was suffering an eye injury and thought to have a talking book to amuse me. Alas, the suth'n ac'cent was pretty difficult to understand. Perhaps this is a "Guy Novel" something in opposition to chick flicks, which I'm not a fan of either. I found the plot difficult to follow; the descriptive powers of the author were marvellous but then the characters started talking and I was lost.
I wasn't able to finish it. I just couldn't find any sympathy for the characters. Would someone like to buy this from me?

James Lee Burke's lead series character of Dave Robicheaux has become one of my favorites of recent years, and the latest in the Robicheaux series, LAST CAR TO ELYSIAN FIELDS, certainly does not disappoint. While not necessarily long at around 340 pages, Burke still manages to easily maintain three different storylines that, while seemingly independent of each other, all come together nicely in the end. This installment also illustrates the latest changes in Dave's life as he grows older and wiser. With his daughter Alafair at college and his wife Bootsie deceased, Dave continues on in his life alone. As always, colorful character and Dave's former partner Clete Purcel is a big part of the story and it's always interesting watching the two go back and forth.

The finest recurring quality of all of Burke's books is the beautifully descriptive prose. With the setting in the Louisiana bayou, Burke's colorful descriptions lets you close your eyes and imagine the setting with relative ease.

The only drawback from the book came late in the book. On several instances in the last hundred pages, it really seemed as if the autor was trying to push his political agenda on the reader. The remarks had nothing to do with the characters, hadd nothing to do with the storyline, and really distracted me from the reading experience for a few pages as I tried to figure out why those remarks were there.

Outside of that, this is a classic Burke and evidence that neither he nor Dave Robicheaux are showing any signs of slowing down!

With a precision writing style reminiscent of McCrae's BARK OF THE DOGWOOD and a plot worthy of Leonard's TISHOMINGO BLUES, this latest James Lee Burke does not disappoint. The writing style alone is worth the price of admission, and the plot is a character-driven tour-de-force that builds toward the end--something not every novel does, but should. Set in and around sultry New Orleans, this highly charged tale will take you into the darkest corners of the human mind and heart. I highly recommend this compelling and well written novel.

Another truly great novel from James Lee Burke, on par with all of his others. What truly distinguishes Burke's novels is his gorgeous writing style--he truly evokes a sense of place and you can almost smell the bayou as he writes about it. His descriptions of people are equally good--I got a very clear picture of each character he described. If you have never read James Lee Burke, TRY HIM! You won't be disappointed. (Oh, and the story is great!)

Last Car to Elysian Fields is another in the Robicheaux series and like Jolie Blon's Bounce before it, is original, relatively complex and ultimately an excellent story that I had a hard time putting down.

Burke can be wordy, not nearly as so as king and others who don't seem to know when to shut up, but not in this book. His usually elegant descriptive prose is there, but not in the annoying extent that it can be found in other of his novels. Still, for me to complain about Burke's prose is pretty hypocritical since I consider the source of that prose one of the literary communities greatest assets...and he's just a mystery writer...yeah right!

Without giving away the plot, Burke has brought us Clete Purcell at his best, an ira hitman looking for absolution and a typical cast of unsavory southern characters, the higher eschelon's of southern society, forwhom Robicheaux has a natural distaste...as do I. Perhaps that's why I like Dave so much, he's a lot like all of us...a bit in the extreme but a lot like us.

Last Car to Elysian Fields is an excellent read, well worth the price. I highly recommend this book to any one who likes a good mystery, with lots of action.

MS

Last Car to Elysian Fields marks a major turning point in the Dave Robicheaux novels. Dave seems cut loose from his few normal inhibitions, and lives to regret his loose cannon ways. He's clearly a man headed for a crack-up, and his increased vulnerability makes him a more interesting character. The plot itself is as unpredictable and complex as you can imagine without becoming overloaded.

One of the beauties of this book is that any one of several mysteries would have been more than adequate to have made this an above-average book. For example, an ex-IRA hit man, Max Coll, has a gambling debt he cannot pay off. He's given the choice of killing a Catholic priest, Father Jimmie Dolan . . . but something always intervenes to foil his efforts. Pretty soon there's a hit out on Coll as well. In a second plot line, a talented songwriter and singer, Junior Crudup, found his way into the bottom of Louisiana's prison system from which he disappeared with no trace. The prisoner turns out to have been used as a laborer by a prominent war hero who denies remembering the prisoner. In a third plot line, a 17 year-old girl kills herself and two others driving drunk. She got the booze at a drive-through "daiquiri window" . . . and someone wants to stop the investigation into the daiquiri window. Dave also finds the man who miswired his house . . . and caused Bootsie's death. Someone is bound to pay for that! In the background, there are also porn stars, ex-lovers, sleazeballs, and other assorted criminals. Against this backdrop, Clete Purcel is his most outrageous righter of wrongs.

After the book was over, I found myself thinking that this book must surely deserve to be a five-star book. Then, I realized that the novel leaves so little room for hope and redemption that I found myself more despairing about people than encouraged about them. I hope that in future books, Mr. Burke will also show redemptive qualities as well as the darker side of human nature.

My job affords me the ability to listen to tapes all day, usually theology lectures, but also novels. I don't have anything to add to the other positive reviews except to say that the book on tape unabridged is really well done and the reader has a fantastic Southern, New Orleans accent that really gets the mood right. If you're driving to work or have a headset int eh office, this s a great one to get!

With a precision writing style reminiscent of McCrae's BARK OF THE DOGWOOD and a plot worthy of Leonard's TISHOMINGO BLUES, this latest James Lee Burke does not disappoint. The writing style alone is worth the price of admission, and the plot is a character-driven tour-de-force that builds toward the end--something not every novel does, but should. Set in and around sultry New Orleans, this highly charged tale will take you into the darkest corners of the human mind and heart. I highly recommend this compelling and well written novel.

Perhaps I should have read other books by James Lee Burke before reading this one as he obviously has had a lot going on in the colourful life of his hero, Dave Robicheaux, which is touched on only briefly but which gives the picture of a deeply unhappy man. Dave's friend Catholic priest Father Jimmy Dolan has been savagely beaten by an IRA hitman, leaving Dave to try to work out the connection.When three teenaged girls are killed in a car crash after illegally buying drinks from a roadside liquor stand, the threads connecting the hit man, a town notable and the husband of Dave's former lover who is polluting the swamplands with chemicals, become even more intertwined, pulling Dave further into a morass of corruption, murder and secrets which threaten to destabilize this already deeply troubled man. It's a dark story but a very powerful one, and I look forward to reading more of his books.

I guess I'd better go back and review the last couple of Robicheaux books, because I seem to have missed Bootsie's demise. Not that I was a big a fan of hers. She was just to perfectly cutesie (almost rhymes with Bootsie) to be a fully human woman. Quiet, model-thin, always available for sex, morally incorruptible...every guy's Perfect Dream. Only a man would have written her. However, I would like t know what happened so I can piece together the story lines.

Whatever. It's another great one for the New Iberia superheroes...mopping up the street slop, popping tops, crushing trash, etc., etc. It's the way people talk, but not the way they really are. Often, the clean-up crew is a bunch of thugs who do NOT attend 12-step programs and who are far from witty and loveable. But it's fun and there's poetic justice mixed with the poetry. In a Dave Robicheaux novel you love to snicker at the bad guys, knowing they will surely meet Clete.