From Publishers Weekly
Sadistic villains and interior demons plague Cajun police detective Dave Robicheaux as the murder of a local cop draws him into the painful conflicts of the Sonnier family, with whom he grew up near the bayous. Weldon Sonnier, an oil speculator perhaps involved with organized crime in New Orleans, is married to the sister of racist Louisiana politician Bobby Earl; Lyle Sonnier is a televangelist with a widely publicized gift of healing that antagonizes the detective, whose wife has lupus; Weldon and Lyle's sister, Drew, whom Robicheaux loved as a teenager, is New Iberia's liberal eccentric. Harshly abused as children, the Sonniers exert a strong pull on Robicheaux, whose desire to help pits him and his former New Orleans police department partner Cletus Purcel against southern Louisiana's fierce Mafia leader and his hired thugs, one of whom, Robicheaux observes, has a face with the "moral depth and complexity of freshly poured cement." While attending AA meetings, trying to cope with both his response to his wife's illness and his moral rage at Earl's politicking, Robicheaux pursues killers through biker bars and unearths long-buried secrets in the Sonnier past. Burke ( A Morning for Flamingos ) resolves the complex case in a satisfying climax as Robicheaux comes to terms with social ills, the evil of individuals and his own helplessness to overcome them. $100,000 ad/promo.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
Another dark rhapsody on Burke's favorite themes--power and vengeance, organized crime, maverick Louisiana lawmen, and nightmares from Vietnam--all pulled together more tightly than ever by the Sonnier family, threatened by somebody (oilman brother Weldon's mob contacts? televangelist brother Lyle's stray sheep? sister Drew's old political enemies? brother-in-law Bobby Earl's followers in the Aryan Nation? hateful paterfamilias Verise, long presumed dead in a tanker explosion?) who first shoots out Weldon's window and then executes a cop in the family basement. There'll be more violence--much more--and enough guilt for everybody, as New Iberia detective Dave Robicheaux, instead of maundering over the issues, as in Black Cherry Blues (1989) and A Morning for Flamingos (1990), turns in his finest performance to date. By no means a well-made detective story--the Sonniers' coincidental bad luck rivals Job's--but a wholly original tale of crime and revenge, inside and outside the law. This series keeps getting stronger and stronger. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
About the Author
James Lee Burke is the New York Times bestselling, Edgar Award-winning author of twenty-four novels, including eighteen starring the Cajun detective Dave Robicheaux. Burke grew up on the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast, where he now lives with his wife Pearl. They also spend several months a year in Montana.
