EricCWelch

Burke, one of my favorite writers, has an extraordinary gift for the use of similes. He can evoke the atmosphere and scenery that sets him way above other writers in the mystery genre. Despite the brutality, violence and corruption, the story intrigues, and Burke continues to develop the character of Dave Robichaeux, ex- New Orleans cop and now homicide detective for the New Iberia Sheriff’s department. The integration of the past and its influence on the present is a recurring theme in Burke's books. Dave is trying to help Letty Labiche, a woman on death row for having murdered the man who had repeatedly molested her and her sister. That he was a cop meant the girls had little sympathy from the department. During his search for exculpatory evidence, Dave stumbles across Zipper Clum, a New Orleans lowlife who provides Dave with information that provideshim with leads related to the death of Dave's mother many years before. Dave, whose memories of his mother, Mae, are bittersweet, becomes obsessed with finding her murderers, cops in the pay of a local crime family, as it turns out. The investigation becomes messy, as the Labiche case becomes intertwined with his search for his mother's killers. Jim Gable, the political liaison in the governor's office with the New Orleans police department whom Dave has reason to dislike more than most, becomes implicated as does the attorney general, a woman Dave learns had connections with Labiche's parents. In the meantime, a hit man, Johnny Remeta, has taken a liking to Alifair, Dave's daughter. Johnny, too, is involved in the whole sordid mess that resolves into a climax revealing the truth of Mae's murder. Similes can often be overdone, in fact, a recent book I finished by Stuart Woods, Choke, eschewed them completely. Burke indulges in them quite successfully, and they bring a vividness to the ambiance that is quite startling; the scent of musty leaves, a fetid swamp and dank bar cascade the reader's senses. His latest book, [book:White Dove in the Morning], which I purchased and am reading as an e-book, takes place during the Civil War; historical fiction is not his usual milieu, but this is excellent.