Crusader's Cross: A Dave Robicheaux Novel

I always enjoy the Dave Robicheaux novels, however, they are becoming very repetitive. James Lee Burke is not doing anything very different in this novel. The characters are rather flat, but the settings are beautifully described.

James Lee Burke's excellent story-telling and his prose style hit a high, high level early on and never have wavered. I don't know how he does it. This novel of crime down on the bayou comes about half-way in his unique career, from 2006, and a good used hardback copy like the one I read the other day is dead cheap. Detective Dave is on the case, enough said. And so is Clete.

Burke is a premier author with a well deserves reputation for excellent cop versus the bad guys; this book is good. Not as good as all the books which made Burke 's rep. I'm disappointed to have to say that. Too many f... words, too many explicit revels which hindered my enjoyment and did little to enhance the story.

This was the Dave Robicheaux at his best. Burke does not fail to satisfy at all. The weaving of the distant past with the present day can be overdone, but Burke continues to prove that he has a knack for doing it well.

Once again Burke has written a great story with his usual beautiful command of the English language that captures the true essence of life in Southeast Louisiana. I can't wait for the next installment of the life of Dave Robicheaux.

James Lee Burke is brilliant! He brings the sights, sounds and mentalities that still live in the South alive. You can smell and feel the musty dampness of the bayou . Great complicated plots, great characters and I can't wait to read another of his books!

I found this audio version of Crusader's Cross to be boring and did not hold my interest at all. It could be the reader, Will Pattons' tone put me to sleep but I found this book hard to follow, uneventful and not worth the effort. I have other James Lee Burke novels to listen to and hope these are better. The rating on the store does not reflect well with how I did not enjoy this book.

The year is 1958 and Dave Robicheaux and his half-brother Jimmy have just graduated from high school and are working with an offshore drilling crew. On their days off they hit Galveston beach, wander out too far and find themselves lunch for the local sharks. A girl named Ida Durbin paddles out and saves the brothers. Jimmy falls for Ida and they make plans to go to Mexico together but Ida disappears and Jimmy and Dave never hear from her again. The discover Ida was a prostitute and try to put memories of her and her pimp Lou behind them. Fast-forward half-a-century and Ida and Lou return to open old wounds in the lives of the Robicheaux brothers. What follows makes Crusader’s Cross one of the most poetic and heart-breaking episodes in James Lee Burke’s fine series about the Louisiana detective named Robicheaux.

With every book that I read in the Dave Robicheaux series it just keep getting better and better! This is the best series that I have ever read and I do not say this lightly especially because John Sandford and John Grisham are among some of my very favorite authors. James Lee Burke started at the top of his game and so far is still way ahead of the game. He writes poetically and magically. No one writes about Louisiana and the bayou the way he does. I have lived along the bayou most of my life and now that I'm living in the city I can see it all so clearly when I read his writing. A++++++

The opening scene of this Dave Robicheaux mystery is a four-page description of an event that takes place in the water off a Galveston beach. I grew up on an Atlantic coast beach, and I was mesmerized by the scene. It was so real that I could smell the salt and feel the waves. I read it several times before moving on, just enjoying being taken back to something so familiar to me. And this is one of the things I love most about James Lee Burke: Not only does he spin complex and interesting yarns, but he also writes beautifully.

This was my second Robicheaux mystery, and now I'm hooked. This novel contained many of the same themes as the first one I read--the burdens of secret-filled family histories, the ongoing price of racism, the hard truths of alcoholism--but all done up in a completely different way this time. The mystery itself consists of numerous threads woven together, unravelling separately, and the denouement came as a complete surprise to me. Didn't see it coming, and that's the mark of a master in my book.

As always, the descriptions of the Louisiana bayous and weather and creatures kept me securely in Dave Robcheaux's world, and Burke's careful characterizations not only of his main characters, but even of the ones on the periphery, kept me believing. There's a lot of old-fashioned violence in Burke novels--guys get busted up in bar brawls and end up with stitches and bruises and black eyes--and, of course, the more graphic and disturbing violence that attends the murders at the heart of the mysteries. Burke handles all of this blood-letting very well, providing just enough detail to keep the reality level high while never veering off into salaciousness. Burke also puts some very perceptive thoughts into Robicheaux's head. For example, this one:

"The sweeping breadth of the store's interior was crowded with people for whom a Wal-Mart is a gift from God. In my hometown, most of these are poor and uneducated, and assume that the low-paying jobs that define their lives are commonplace throughout the country. The fact that the goods they buy are often shoddily made, the clothes sewn in Third World sweatshops by people not unlike themselves, is an abstraction that seems to have no application the low price on the item."

Love Dave. Love these books!

"Crusader's Cross," (2005), is the fourteenth novel published by American author James Lee Burke in his mighty New York Times bestselling Detective Dave Robicheaux series. Like the earlier books of the series, and most of the series' works to follow, the book, a Southern noir, police procedural/mystery, is set in and around New Orleans, Louisiana, more or less home country for Burke, who was born in Houston, Texas, and grew up on the Texas-Louisiana gulf coast.

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. Robicheaux is still living in New Iberia, Louisiana, a small quiet town near New Orleans. He is no longer employed by the local sheriff's office as CRUSAADERS CROSS opens, but, as the body count mounts, he will be asked to return by his former partner, now the sheriff, the widely thought-to-be lesbian Helen Soileau, of whom we will hear much more as the series goes on. The detective no longer lives in the house his father built; it has burnt down. His third wife Bootsie has died of lupus; his adopted daughter Alafair is studying at Oregon's Reed College. Robichaux has sold his nearby boat and bait shop to Batist, the black man who worked there with him, whom we have met many times before and will again. Alafair's pet Tripod, the three-legged raccoon, is very much around, as is Robicheaux's pet cat Snuggs. The detective will meet a politically-active nun he fancies, Molly Boyle. And, to be sure, Clete Purcell, Robicheaux's impulsive former partner on the New Orleans Police Department, an overweight, heavily-drinking, brawling, heavily-scarred survivor of the city's tough Irish Channel neighborhood, (as are the inevitable New Orleans gangsters in any work of Burke's), is always around to help the detective. Robicheaux is of Cajun ancestry, still reliving the nightmare of his service in Vietnam. He has a drinking problem, and a tendency to violence that is exaggerated by his friend and alter-ego Purcel.

This book around, the inevitable New Orleans wise guy is Didi Giacano (Didi Gee), who is typical of Burke's mobsters in that he, too, comes out of the Irish Channel neighborhood, and has been known to the detective Robichaux since their childhoods. And we get Burke's frequently raised thought that the working class Irish Channel accent resembles more, in its heavy Irish influence, the well-known Brooklyn accent than a Southern one. Robichaux's half-brother Jimmie is mentioned for the first time in several books, as is "Streak," the nickname both have been known by in their own circles, referring to a white streak in their dark hair, the result of childhood malnutrition. The boys' parents are also mentioned for the first time in several books.

The wealthy and powerful local land-owning blue blood, handsome, well-educated, and of a prominent, former slave-holding family, is Valentine Chalons, who is, as ever, resident in the local Big House, ruthless and greedy, doesn't care whom he hurts - always characteristic of Burke's similarly situated rich men. And as is also a frequent occurrence in Burke's work, the hated rich man has a relationship with a beautiful woman with whom Robicheaux has a romantic history: but this time it's Chalons' sister Honoria. There's the usual psychotic, funny-looking bad guy killer with the funny name. And Burke continues to give us the odd grotesque character, a sure hallmark of Southern gothic literature. Finally, Burke gives a callout to Michael Connelly, praising his THE BLACK ECHO, first book in Connelly's Bosch series.

Well, you can see, there's a lot of familiar material in this series' entry. Still, Burke continues to write with energy, power, and, as the great 20th century Irish poet William Butler Yeats said, passionate intensity. Enough, I think, to hook most readers, and keep them turning the pages. Perhaps, more than anything else, in Burke's work, we'll enjoy some of the most beautiful, knowledgeable writing ever committed to paper about the flora, fauna, geography, and human occupants of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, now so much in the news. In this book, we also get some of Burke's most meltingly beautiful writing as he discusses his, and Robicheaux's salad days in the 1950s: "pink Cadillacs, drive-in movies, stylized street hoods, rock `n'roll, Hank and Lefty on the jukebox, the dirty bop, daylight baseball, chopped down '32 Ford with Merc engines drag-racing in a roar of thunder past drive-in restaurants..."

Burke attended Southwestern Louisiana Institute; later received B. A. and M. A. degrees from the University of Missouri in 1958 and 1960 respectively. Over the years he worked as a landman for Sinclair Oil Company, a pipeliner, land surveyor, newspaper reporter, college English professor, social worker on Skid Row in Los Angeles, clerk for the Louisiana Employment Service, and instructor in the U. S. Job Corps. His work has twice been awarded an Edgar for Best Crime Novel of the Year. At least eight of his novels have been New York Times bestsellers. This author's pen is definitely mightier than any sword.

After reading the first thirteen Dave Robicheaux mysteries by James Lee Burke at Breakneck speed, I finally came to the end of this series with Crusader's Cross. Actually, since Crusader's Cross was recently published, I'm hoping that Burke still has a number of Robicheaux novels left to write.

Crusader's Cross opens up with Dave Robicheaux no longer working for the Iberia Sheriff's Department. But his sabbatical doesn't last very long. First, a former schoolmate makes a deathbed confession to Robicheaux. He's afraid that he may have contributed to the death of a prostitute, Ida Durkin. Ida saved Jimmie Robicheaux's (Dave's half-brother) life back in 1958 and Jimmie had a crush on her when she mysteriously vanished. Also, a serial killer is brutally murdering women in the New Orleans/Iberia Parish area. Dave's former partner, Helen Soileau is now sheriff and she reluctantly allows Dave back on the force.

As with all Robicheaux novels, events are set in motion when Dave starts poking around. The usual things start happening: his life is threatened, friend Clete Purcel gets involved doing wild things, hit men start appearing, etc. Robicheaux always seems at war with the upper class, and in Crusader's Cross, he feels that secrets being hidden by the Chalon family hold the key to the disappearance of Ida Durbin. And if there aren't enough plot complications, Dave falls in love with a nun.

Many aspects of the plot have similarities to previous books, but we excuse Burke because his writing is so terrific. He is especially astute when it comes to describing Louisiana. "The state's culture, mind-set, religious attitudes, and economics are no different from those of a Caribbean nation. The person who believes he can rise to a position of wealth and power in the state of Louisiana and not do business with the devil probably knows nothing about the devil and even less about Louisiana." Burke describes alcoholism as "not a disease here but a venerated family heirloom." Burke's characters are always interesting and I'm beginning to enjoy Helen Soileau as much as I like Cletus Purcel. But I will admit that with Robicheaux's anger management issues, it is a stretch that he would remain a cop. Maybe it's a Louisiana thing.

Seeing a book review for Crusader's Cross this summer is what introduced me to James Lee Burke. Now that I've gone through all the Robicheaux novels, I'll have to start on his Billy Bob Holland series.

In 1958, Jimmy and Dave Robicheaux were swimming in Galveston Bay when sharks appeared nearby. A young woman observes this from the shore and rows out to rescue them. The woman, Ida Durbin, forever left an imprint on their lives.

Jimmy, in particular, becomes infatuated with Ida and finds that she is working as a prostitute to pay off a family debt. He decides to rescue her. Jimmy and Ida are about to run away to Mexico when Ida disappears.

Years later, Dave learns from a dieing friend that Ida was snatched by two policemen who were on the take. They were paid by the owner of the house of prostitution to get her away from Jimmy.

Shortly after learning this, Dave is assaulted. He believes that someone didn't want him to know about Ida. He gets his old job back at the Iberia Sheriff's department. Sheriff Helen Soileau wants him to look into the murders of women who were abducted from Baton Rouge, raped and murdered. The last victim was a young woman in New Iberia who might have been a victim of opportunity. While Dave is looking for the killer, he also has time to look into the disappearance of Ida.

There is a continuing dispute between Dave and Val Chalons. Val is a TV personality and when his sister, Honoria, is murdered, Dave's prints are found in her home. Val makes this public as well as the fact that Dave had recently married a Catholic Nun. This escalates the conflict to one of physical nature and from the fight, Val ends up in the hospital. Dave almost loses his job from this, however, after a period on desk duty, he's back on the trail of the killer. In this manner, he becomes the Crusader, looking for the killer and nothing can stop Dave from finding him.

James Lee Burke is one of the finest writers in the mystery field. His is one of only three people who have won the Edgar Award for Best Novel of the Year, two times. "Crusader's Cross" continues his excellence in writing. The plot is unique, Dave Robicheaux is one of the best known and liked characters in literature and his friend, Clete is one in a million.

Other reviews have commented on the book very well. This was my first book by James Lee Burke. I have enjoyed John D. MacDonald and Lawrence Block, and was trying to figure out what other authors might give me the same enjoyment. In February 2010 it suddenly hit me that both MacDonald and Block are Grand Master award winners from the Mystery Writers of America. So I looked up the list of all previous winners. James Lee Burke received this designation in 2009. So I checked out Crusader's Cross from the local library. Before finishing it, I had already ordered 10 more James Lee Burke novels on-line. I'm happy to say that Burke's Dave Robicheaux is just as satisfying as either Travis McGee or Matt Scudder, and that Crusader's Cross is an absolutely brilliant novel. As with the greatest books in the other two series, this is an interesting mystery set within a larger novel that is about the trials and tribulations of life itself. And I have to say: the way Burke presented the final clue to answer the whodunit was remarkably elegant and powerful, and set up a denouement that is second to none in all of mystery and suspense literature. Bravo!

If you liked MacDonald and Block, check out Burke, and all the other Grand Masters. If you like Burke, check out MacDonald and Block and all the other Grand Masters. If you've read them all... let's start a fan club!

The reviewer 'Joe from NJ' had me laughing out loud. Seriously, it is Will Patton that gives these James Lee Burke audios the added life they deserve. Will Patton is a big part of the reason I keep coming back to the audios. He read Charles Fraser's second novel, 'Thirteen Moons', making it magical.
Some reader's voices work, others don't. Patton's is over the top.
As for Burke, he shames other writers with his blend of deeply felt descriptions and sometimes quirky metaphors. His understanding of the criminal mind, and the beauty of the language, almost puts him in his own genre. No other writer of so-called mystery can claim such a rich offering of geographic surroundings, and appropriate understanding of Holy scripture.
'Crusader's Cross' will not earn a Pulitzer. It's not meant to. It's meant to do exactly what it does, give the reader a satisfying sense of justice in a broken world. Burke makes you feel the heat.
Burke's 'Feast Day of Fools' with Hackberry Holland is added proof of all this.

I was hooked on Burke's Dave Robicheaux series early on, enjoying his antics and dramas over the years. Now in the third decade of the intrepid detective's adventures, Burke writes from long experience, deep pockets of memory that have infused his characters with their own particular authenticity. The latest Robicheaux novel harkens back to Dave's youth with his look-alike half-brother, Jimmie the Gent, the two working the Louisiana-Texas coastline. It is there that Dave and Jimmie meet the insouciant Ida Durbin, in the sweltering summer of 1958. Their friendship is short, but significant, as Ida saves the brothers, stranded on a sandbar, from the closer-circling fin of a shark.

Jimmie falls for the slightly-older, but charming Ida, who is evasive about her job and where she lives. As it turns out, Ida is a lady of the evening who works in a house on the notorious Post Office Street in Galveston. Jimmie plans to buy Ida out of her bondage and live in Mexico, her shady career relegated to the past, but Ida disappears without a trace before their scheduled meeting. Dave never forgets about the quirky woman, her memory easily resurfacing as a sin of omission "like the rusty head of a hatchet buried in the heartwood of a tree- it eventually finds the teeth of a whining saw blade".

Forty years later, news of Ida's fate appears from an obscure source. By the time his conscience bids a reckoning, Dave has retired from the Sheriff's Department in New Iberia Parish. As a recovering alcoholic, the past is not an ideal place for Dave to focus his thoughts, his history littered with violence, mayhem and two dead wives; but once the hook is in, his instincts take over. His own past rife with dead bodies, criminal acts and vigilantism, Dave's old friend Clete Purcell, formerly of the New Orleans Police Department, has opened his won P.I. firm. Robicheaux decides to pay his pal a visit, Ida Durbin heavy on his mind. Clete applies himself to what he does best, digging up connections most people want left alone. Out of nowhere, Dave is the subject of intense interest and the object of violence, only aggravating his curiosity and determination. Given the circumstances, Robicheaux temporarily takes his shield back from the New Iberia P.D.

With Clete Purcell in tow, Dave mixes it up from New Iberia to New Orleans, dealing with such colorful characters as the Chalons family (organized crime), Nig Rosewater and Wee Willie Bimstine (bail bondsmen), Bad Texas Bob Cobb (a cop on the pad) and Jigger Babineau (mob muscle). To add to the confusion, Dave gets romantically and emotionally attached to Molly Boyle, a nun who never took her vows and is not adverse to Mr. Robicheaux's charms, even when her work and reputation are imperiled. True to form, Dave and Clete push against anything and everyone in the way their investigation.

Behind the sudden resurfacing of Ida's past and a recent series of related murders of women in Baton Rouge, Robicheaux's world is filled with gangsters, long-buried insidious secrets and the recurring chaos that follows him everywhere, as all the demons he walked away from return for one more pitched battle. Silk-suited, passing-for-genteel thugs, murderers and disappeared prostitutes are all part of the Robicheaux lexicon, the dark heart of these mysteries buried in a south that seethes with conflicted loyalties and the tentacles of organized crime, set in a landscape of breathtaking beauty, magnolia blossoms and gothic architecture. The evil creeps out at night and even the weary Robicheaux can't ignore the call to justice for the powerless and unrequited. Is this one of Burke's best, informed by a rich past, or another exercise in the same well-worn vein, the intrepid Robicheaux reaching the end of his tether? Not as long as there are loyal readers who appreciate a little seasoning on their heroes. Luan Gaines/2005.

There are a lot of good mystery writers out there and there's even a decent number of great ones, but there's only a few that are the true elite. In times past, you could include Raymond Chandler, Ross MacDonald and James MacDonald among this group. Nowadays, you have writers like Michael Connelly, Elmore Leonard, Dennis Lehane and James Ellroy. James Lee Burke is also in this select group and Crusader's Cross is yet another reason why he merits such status.

Crusader's Cross is another in Burke's series of novels featuring Dave Robicheaux, who over the years has gone from New Orleans cop to private eye to small town deputy. Along the way, he's battled many inner demons, most notably alcoholism, and been married three times (the first would end in divorce, the second with a murder, and the third by natural causes). Now Robicheaux is in his sixties and as Crusader's Cross begins, he's retired.

A man from Dave's past, however, will bring back memories of a time over four decades ago, when Dave's half-brother Jimmie fell for prostitute Ida Durbin. When Jimmie tried to rescue her from her pimp, Ida disappeared and was assumed dead. Now, a dying acquaintance of Dave's has raised doubts, and Dave, ever the crusader, will soon take the badge back to look for her. There's also a more important reason for his being allowed back on the force: there is a serial killer on the loose, and the two cases will eventually become linked in an unexpected way.

As is often the case in a Robicheaux novel, the past has a huge influence on the present, not only with Ida Durbin, but also the wealthy Chalons family who have a few skeletons in their past. In particular, the Chalons son Val will go to war with Dave, inclined to use money to ruin his adversary. For Dave, things will get really bad for him in many ways, but fortunately he has two things in his corner: his longtime friend (and darker half) Clete Purcel and a pretty nun who will charm Dave. There is also the return of Jimmie Robicheaux after an absence of ten books or so to stir the pot.

A good mystery writer will keep you turning the pages. A great one will give you two contradictory feelings: you want to see how it all turns out, but you also want to enjoy the experience as long as possible. Burke does all this, and more: he is a truly great writer whose descriptive abilities bring his world to life and whose characters are both compelling and complex. Crusader's Cross, as much as his other novels, demonstrates just how good Burke can be.

Dave Robicheaux has turned in his badge and gun, retired from the New Iberia, Louisiana sheriff's department, and is contentedly drawing social security and a pension. He bends the occasional fishing rod in the Bayou Tesche with his fishing buddies, tends to his cat and Tripod, his three-legged raccoon, visits his late wife Bootsie's grave, and attends his AA meetings. The leisure life agrees with him.

A call from the wife of a college classmate rouses him from his early summer reverie. Her husband is dying and he desperately asks to speak with Dave. The dying man recalls an incident surrounding the disappearance of a girl by the name of Ida Durbin. The girl had meant little to Dave, but his half-brother, Jimmie Robicheaux, had fallen in love with her after she saved Dave and Jimmie from a shark attack off of Galveston Island in the late 1950s. Ida was a small-time prostitute, but Jimmie didn't care and wanted to get her out of the life. She vanished the day of their planned elopement over 45 years ago, and Jimmie had never forgotten her.

Dave half-heartedly promises the dying man that he'll look into some new evidence on her disappearance, but he doesn't really think it will go anywhere until he asks a couple of questions of two veteran New Orleans cops. Their reaction is so unexpected and violent that his curiosity is piqued. Dave, as readers know, never met an underdog he didn't want to defend --- especially if the abuse was coming from the rich, powerful or corrupt political families of Louisiana --- so he decides to look further into the disappearance and possible murder of Ida Durbin. The trail of Ida Durbin leads to the prominent Chalon family whose members are deeply involved with drug running, prostitution and, not surprisingly, politics.

The rest is pure James Lee Burke. We're offered the deeply evocative bayou scenes and the complex relationships between unlikely characters, such as Molly Boyle, a Catholic nun with whom Dave falls in love. He teams up with Clete Purcell, his best friend and former partner in the New Orleans police department whose own rap sheet is longer than most of the perps he apprehended, and Helen Soileau, sheriff of New Iberia County who reluctantly puts Dave back on the payroll to lighten the load when the murders start to mount up.

In this 14th Robicheaux novel, old Dave may be a bit long in the tooth, but he can still fight the righteous fight. He doesn't just join the crusade --- he digs the hole, erects the cross, then climbs up on it and nails himself down. Even Sheriff Soileau thinks he's finally stepped over the line, and Dave is not entirely certain that he's innocent of the murder of a Chalon family member.

In one of the richest plots ever, CRUSADER'S CROSS is a welcome return of one of mystery fiction's most indelible characters.

--- Reviewed by Roz Shea

"The wind smelled of humus, lichen, the musky odor of pecan husks broken under the shoe, a sunshower on the fields across the bayou. But any poetry that might have been contained in that moment was lost when I stared into Honoria's face, convinced that human insanity was as close to our fingertips as the act of rubbing fog off a windowpane.

Honoria's eyes remained fixed on mine, expectant, somehow trusting, the redness of her mouth and the mole next to it as inviting as a poisonous flower." (Crusader's Cross, Page 66)

The inherent evil whether born or created in some and righting past wrongs as best as one can have always been strong themes in the Dave Robicheaux series of novels. That certainly is true in this latest effort, which leads readers back in time to 1958 before returning to the present.

Years ago, Dave and his brother Jimmie met a young woman named Ida Durbin in Galveston, Texas. Jimmie quickly fell in love with her not knowing much about her including the fact that she was a prostitute. Once he found out, he made plans to get her away from her pimp and out of the life. Unfortunately, that didn't work and she vanished without a trace moments before Jimmie was supposed to meet her. Jimmie has always carried a torch for her, convinced she survived whatever happened and may have even had a country music career.

In the present, Dave is called to the hospital to talk to Troy Bordelon. Troy has been asking for Dave for some reason possible because they knew each other years ago. Troy always was bullying scum and Dave has no idea why he would want to talk to him about anything. Troy tells him that his Uncle was one of the cops who took a woman away (presumably Ida) years ago and he doesn't know if she is dead or not. Dave tries to get more information but Troy is unable to talk. He also gets little information about of two Sheriff's deputies who lurk outside the hospital and want to know what Troy told Dave. The cops are dirty and with the sudden death of Troy during the night, the answers are going to be harder to find.

For Dave, he doesn't know if she is alive or dead or what happened so long ago. He also can't explain why if she is alive, she never contacted Jimmie. Dave goes back home to New Iberia, Louisiana but with so many questions about what happened and guilt over the fact that they didn't do more at the time, he isn't about to leave things alone. Before long, he is back on the local police force so that his questions have some authority behind them. Once again, as he investigates he begins dealing with another wealthy family that seems rotten at the core while at the same time dealing with his continuing grief over the death of his wife and his own alcoholic demons. Throw in a serial killer who starts dropping bodies in the area as possible a message to Dave, the usual hard nosed antics of Clete Purcell, the usual media circus and a new love interest for Dave, along with a few other story ingredients, and the result is another dark and brooding crime laden mystery that is good to the final word.

As always, author James Lee Burke, turns a phrase well and brings the beauty as well as the pain fully alive for the reader. Told primarily through Dave's viewpoint, the read moves forward slowly in terms of time and the long back story as well as the crimes depicted in the here and now. Through it all, there is a certain melancholy feel to the work as Dave while dealing with everything going on in his life, comments frequently about the passing of years, the aging process, life spans and death, and such. More so that in the earlier novels in the series and this time it is like Dave believes that his life has pretty much passed him by.

This reader was left with a sense that this novel, beyond being another good one, could easily be the final novel of the series. One hopes not and hopefully there will be many more. If it is the final one, he ends the series on a high note and in one book, hits on all the story themes that have made up in the entire series. By doing so, the work certainly stands as a shining example of an author's body of work as well as the work of a familiar beloved character.

Kevin R. Tipple © 2005

I picked Crusaders Cross up expecting a run of the mill detective novel and was absolutely leveled by Burke's prose. Burke writing literally breathes Louisiana onto the page. Writing of this caliber is rare in the crime fiction genre. Burke elevates a complex but still relatively pedestrian crime novel, into something else entirely. His writing is insightful, perceptive, and lyrical - evoking a sense of time and place that is stunning.

The plot itself is multilayered. A deathbed confession gets our hero Dave Robicheaux to start looking into the disappearance of a prostitute who Dave and his half brother Jimmy met back in 1958. Meanwhile, a serial killer is abducting and brutally murdering women. Before long Dave must content with hit men who have been dispatched to punch his ticket, a budding romance with a nun, trumped up charges of sexual molestation, a mentally unstable woman who handcuffs him to his bed, and a hard fall 'off the wagon' with subsequent memory loss that results in Dave becoming the prime suspect in one of his own murder investigations.

The cast of characters is the literary equivalent of a royal flush. Dave's buddy Clete Purcel stands out though as one of the most entertaining characters I've ever come across.

Crusaders Cross is the first James Lee Burke novel I've read, but it certainly won't be the last. Brilliant writing and a complex multilayered plot. Well worth reading.

Burke has been one of my favorite authors since his first book, but I have to agree with the reviews that say he seems to draw from the same well to the extent it looks like he is using cut and paste to put in the same descriptions about the landscape (or bayou/river scape), and of stock characters like Clete Purcell. And I wish he would actually hang around with some real cops and learn about police procedure and especially firearms. He is always having to cock his 1911 .45, or lower the hammer, which is a big no-no - the safest way to carry is "cocked and locked." Lowering the hammer is a guaranteed way to get an accidental discharge. Also, for a street wise cop he is always getting blind sided with a black jack or 2 x 4 or forgetting to lock his door, knowing that sociopaths or hitmen are after him, and waking up handcuffed to his own bed. Finally, the bad guys are generally the same - the rich, degenerate old money aristocrats, usually involved in incest, and the New Orleans mafia.
What really annoys me in this book is that one of the plots is the hunt for a serial killer, based on a real one who terrorized Baton Rouge. Burke buys into the myth that all serial killers are white. In truth, the B.R. killer was black. Which leads to another point - the blacks and mixed race characters are all noble, the villains are all white. And lest I forget, the whole novel is kicked into gear by a hooker with a heart of gold.

It seems that the Robicheaux series just keeps churning out brilliance but CRUSADER'S CROSS even exceeds the high expectations set forth by previous installments. Longtime followers of the series will find their favorite Cajun detective still alive and kicking with sidekick Clete Purcel, this time uncovering the secret surrounding the disappearance of a woman fifty years in Dave's past.

This book is classic Burke in many ways: the story, the setting, the prose, and more. The fact that this installment is coming along now is ironic, considering how much New Orleans and the Louisiana bayou country has been in the news over the last several months. Everyone has felt a connection to the area and many Robicheaux fans watched the coverage of Hurricane Katrina with their hearts a little heavier because of the connection we feel to the region through these books. The language is beautifully descriptive and the story is one of the finest in the series. We also get to see Dave's half-brother Jimmie, a rare commodity.

Clete is classic Clete. Every Robicheaux fan knows of which I speak.

The book leaves you breathing a breath of fresh air and you are somewhat disappointed that it has to end. At the same time, you almost feel that the final sentences were the final words in the series.

But fear not Dave fans, the new book is already in the works. I, as well as many others, can't wait to read it.

OK, most Robicheaux fans will love this book. So did I. BUT, we have all seen this before: Dave takes on an evil aristocratic Louisiana family, he falls from grace, pulls himself up, and the family is ultimately destroyed. In the meantime he gets married a fourth time and survives on the banks of the Teche. The trouble is that James Lee Burke is now a victim of placing his characters in real space and time. This novel, as the author makes claer, takes place in the late summer of 2004. Dave, in turn, remembers playing in a New Iberia park during World War II, the event that precipitates this adventure takes place in 1958 when he and his brother were going to college, prior to his service in Vietnam, yada, yada. By my count, Dave would be around 65 in 2004, old enough for Social Security and Medicare, and perhaps too old for being beaten into a pulp or having a honeymoon like a man one third his age. (Maybe its in the water.) I suppose that as long as the Rolling Stones are out on tour, Dave and Clete can beat up southern Louisiana. But, I am a Vietnam era veteran who is saying the next Robicheaux better be a prequil. My college students (born in the late 1980's) have never heard of Charlie Watts or Keith Richards.

Steady, consistent, lyrical, reliable, soothing, wonderful, a distinct voice.......all ways to describe James Lee Burke's writing. For myself, while it may be an odd thought, I have always had moments when reading his prose when I felt like I was actually reading poetry, his writing is that beautiful. You just can't go wrong with James Lee Burke and his protagonist Dave Robicheaux. I highly recommend this book, and anything else he has ever written, he is simply that good. Crusader's Cross, set in the bayou country of Louisiana and the surrounding environs, relates a tale of the long-lost puppy love of Dave's brother and their search for what happened to her, weaves in a new story line revolving about a tough, remarkable nun, and features both an odd family who claim descent from Roman heroes who defeated Attila the Hun at Chalons and a depraved, sadistic serial killer who seems to be taunting Robicheaux. These separate threads are intricately woven together against the historical and ongoing backdrop of the prostitution trade in the South.

In his richly drawn and finely realized protagonist, Burke has created a true hero: a complex man, with deep roots and deeper loves, heartsick for the lost way of life of his idealized youth in the Acadian bayou country. Dave Robicheaux, son of an Cajun oil rig worker, child of the golden fifties, Vietnam veteran, police detective, alcoholic, husband, father, friend, a man of violence and conscience, wondering where the beauty in his world has gone. This novel may be one of his best yet, and I was glad to see his half-brother show up again. Run, don't walk, to go get your copy of this book and prepare for wonderful experience - this is a rare one. Shut out your friends and family, grab some goodies to eat, lock the door, throw the bolt and settle in for one heck of a good read. Crusader's Cross is another wonderful installment in the Robicheaux series.

I picked Crusaders Cross up expecting a run of the mill detective novel and was absolutely leveled by Burke's prose. Burke writing literally breathes Louisiana onto the page. Writing of this caliber is rare in the crime fiction genre. Burke elevates a complex but still relatively pedestrian crime novel, into something else entirely. His writing is insightful, perceptive, and lyrical - evoking a sense of time and place that is stunning.

The plot itself is multilayered. A deathbed confession gets our hero Dave Robicheaux to start looking into the disappearance of a prostitute who Dave and his half brother Jimmy met back in 1958. Meanwhile, a serial killer is abducting and brutally murdering women. Before long Dave must content with hit men who have been dispatched to punch his ticket, a budding romance with a nun, trumped up charges of sexual molestation, a mentally unstable woman who handcuffs him to his bed, and a hard fall 'off the wagon' with subsequent memory loss that results in Dave becoming the prime suspect in one of his own murder investigations.

The cast of characters is the literary equivalent of a royal flush. Dave's buddy Clete Purcel stands out though as one of the most entertaining characters I've ever come across.

Crusaders Cross is the first James Lee Burke novel I've read, but it certainly won't be the last. Brilliant writing and a complex multilayered plot. Well worth reading.

Burke has been one of my favorite authors since his first book, but I have to agree with the reviews that say he seems to draw from the same well to the extent it looks like he is using cut and paste to put in the same descriptions about the landscape (or bayou/river scape), and of stock characters like Clete Purcell. And I wish he would actually hang around with some real cops and learn about police procedure and especially firearms. He is always having to cock his 1911 .45, or lower the hammer, which is a big no-no - the safest way to carry is "cocked and locked." Lowering the hammer is a guaranteed way to get an accidental discharge. Also, for a street wise cop he is always getting blind sided with a black jack or 2 x 4 or forgetting to lock his door, knowing that sociopaths or hitmen are after him, and waking up handcuffed to his own bed. Finally, the bad guys are generally the same - the rich, degenerate old money aristocrats, usually involved in incest, and the New Orleans mafia.
What really annoys me in this book is that one of the plots is the hunt for a serial killer, based on a real one who terrorized Baton Rouge. Burke buys into the myth that all serial killers are white. In truth, the B.R. killer was black. Which leads to another point - the blacks and mixed race characters are all noble, the villains are all white. And lest I forget, the whole novel is kicked into gear by a hooker with a heart of gold.

It seems that the Robicheaux series just keeps churning out brilliance but CRUSADER'S CROSS even exceeds the high expectations set forth by previous installments. Longtime followers of the series will find their favorite Cajun detective still alive and kicking with sidekick Clete Purcel, this time uncovering the secret surrounding the disappearance of a woman fifty years in Dave's past.

This book is classic Burke in many ways: the story, the setting, the prose, and more. The fact that this installment is coming along now is ironic, considering how much New Orleans and the Louisiana bayou country has been in the news over the last several months. Everyone has felt a connection to the area and many Robicheaux fans watched the coverage of Hurricane Katrina with their hearts a little heavier because of the connection we feel to the region through these books. The language is beautifully descriptive and the story is one of the finest in the series. We also get to see Dave's half-brother Jimmie, a rare commodity.

Clete is classic Clete. Every Robicheaux fan knows of which I speak.

The book leaves you breathing a breath of fresh air and you are somewhat disappointed that it has to end. At the same time, you almost feel that the final sentences were the final words in the series.

But fear not Dave fans, the new book is already in the works. I, as well as many others, can't wait to read it.

OK, most Robicheaux fans will love this book. So did I. BUT, we have all seen this before: Dave takes on an evil aristocratic Louisiana family, he falls from grace, pulls himself up, and the family is ultimately destroyed. In the meantime he gets married a fourth time and survives on the banks of the Teche. The trouble is that James Lee Burke is now a victim of placing his characters in real space and time. This novel, as the author makes claer, takes place in the late summer of 2004. Dave, in turn, remembers playing in a New Iberia park during World War II, the event that precipitates this adventure takes place in 1958 when he and his brother were going to college, prior to his service in Vietnam, yada, yada. By my count, Dave would be around 65 in 2004, old enough for Social Security and Medicare, and perhaps too old for being beaten into a pulp or having a honeymoon like a man one third his age. (Maybe its in the water.) I suppose that as long as the Rolling Stones are out on tour, Dave and Clete can beat up southern Louisiana. But, I am a Vietnam era veteran who is saying the next Robicheaux better be a prequil. My college students (born in the late 1980's) have never heard of Charlie Watts or Keith Richards.

Steady, consistent, lyrical, reliable, soothing, wonderful, a distinct voice.......all ways to describe James Lee Burke's writing. For myself, while it may be an odd thought, I have always had moments when reading his prose when I felt like I was actually reading poetry, his writing is that beautiful. You just can't go wrong with James Lee Burke and his protagonist Dave Robicheaux. I highly recommend this book, and anything else he has ever written, he is simply that good. Crusader's Cross, set in the bayou country of Louisiana and the surrounding environs, relates a tale of the long-lost puppy love of Dave's brother and their search for what happened to her, weaves in a new story line revolving about a tough, remarkable nun, and features both an odd family who claim descent from Roman heroes who defeated Attila the Hun at Chalons and a depraved, sadistic serial killer who seems to be taunting Robicheaux. These separate threads are intricately woven together against the historical and ongoing backdrop of the prostitution trade in the South.

In his richly drawn and finely realized protagonist, Burke has created a true hero: a complex man, with deep roots and deeper loves, heartsick for the lost way of life of his idealized youth in the Acadian bayou country. Dave Robicheaux, son of an Cajun oil rig worker, child of the golden fifties, Vietnam veteran, police detective, alcoholic, husband, father, friend, a man of violence and conscience, wondering where the beauty in his world has gone. This novel may be one of his best yet, and I was glad to see his half-brother show up again. Run, don't walk, to go get your copy of this book and prepare for wonderful experience - this is a rare one. Shut out your friends and family, grab some goodies to eat, lock the door, throw the bolt and settle in for one heck of a good read. Crusader's Cross is another wonderful installment in the Robicheaux series.

In this intriguing mystery, heavily steeped in the flavor of the bayou of Louisiana, Detective Dave Robicheaux delves into a mystery that has haunted him since the 1950's. When he is hired to investigate the recent string of murders of young women, he sees an opportunity to investigate the mystery of his teen years. The investigation proves to be a dangerous one, one that even threatens his life and that of his wife. Dodging prostitution and drug rings, as well as others who earn their living in the world of crime, Robicheaux fights to uncover secrets, as he fights to maintain his hard-earned sobriety.

All of this ugly depiction of human frailty occurs against the uniquely beautiful backdrop of the Louisiana countryside. As the author, through Robicheaux, savors the sunsets and wildlife on the bayou, the reader can almost see the huge trees enshrouded with Spanish moss swaying in the breeze. The admiration this author has for this part of our country becomes apparent in his gently lyrical prose.

This book is highly recommended, not only for the intriguing mysteries presented, but also for the sheer beauty of the author's loving words describing the beauty of its setting.

"Crusader's Cross" adds to the Burke/Robicheaux legacy. This is fantastic fiction from one of the best series going. Many series start out well, introducing intriguing characters in evocative surroundings, throwing in a mix of crime and mystery to keep us reading. Inevitably, though, they begin to grow stale--or even worse, formulaic.

In his latest mystery, James Lee Burke avoids these pitfalls. David Robicheaux is still mourning the passing of his wife; he's once again battling his alcoholic tendencies with slipping resolve; and he's dealing with a ghost from his past--this time, a freckle-faced woman from a bygone era in Galveston, TX. The loose threads of the woman's past cinch tighter as the story progresses, until Robicheaux finds himself facing internal and external threats as dangerous as ever.

In my opinion, "Jolie Blon's Bounce" and "Purple Cane Road" were stellar installments in the series, whereas "Last Car to Elysian Fields" didn't hold the same sway. "Crusader's Cross" starts off in a whole new setting and goes into previously unexplored corners of Robicheaux's psyche. I love this series because it's so familiar, and I love it even more because it continues to be fresh. Burke is flat-out amazing.

When he was a young man, Dave Robicheaux encountered a brave young woman named Ida Durbin. Dave and his brother Jimmie were young and drunk and swam out to a rock only to be surrounded by a couple of sharks while the sun was going down. Ida arrived with a raft to save them and sparked Jimmie's interest. Unfortuately, Ida had a secret life as a prostitute and Jimmie ended up wanting to take her away from that. Instead, on the day that she and Jimmie are to go to Mexico together to escape, Ida never arrives. All indications are that she met with foul play and that has haunted Dave and Jimmie since that time.

However, as with all stories told by James Lee Burke, that is merely the beginning. In the present, still grieving for his lost wife Bootsie and suffering empty-nest syndrom with Alafair away at college, Dave is confroted with a chance to find out what truly happened to Ida Durbin all those years ago. In Burke's Louisiana, everyone has secrets and they all spill out in a loose jumble. Dave's puzzle is to put them together while maintaining his own precarious hold on his life. His efforts quickly put him into the sights of crooked cops and hitmen, and draw the attention of one of Iberia Parrish's golden sons, Valetine Chalons, who is a television reporter that quickly brings everything he can to bear on destroying Dave's credibility. A serial killer is also loose in the Bayou country. Dave reassumes his job as a deputy sheriff to chase the serial killer, but his true agenda lies in what happened to Ida Durbin all those years ago. The way is tangled, and Dave has snakes of his own to face while chasing a truth no one wants uncovered.

James Lee Burke needs no introduction to his many fans. For the uninitiated, though, CRUSADER'S CROSS is an excellent place to jump on. Dave Robicheaux is a complicated man, one that cannot live in the present because his past constantly remains with him and his chance at a future is always at risk. Burke has written several novels about Robicheaux and lawyer hero Billy Bob Holland as well as stand-alone books.

As always in a Burke book, the prose is lyrical and majestic. The images conjured up in a sentence or two paint entire canvases in the mind. The people in the book are solidly rendered, filled with grace and guilt and good and evil. No one in a Burke novel is truly ever a hero or a villain. Every novel Burke pens centers around revelations, and CRUSADER'S CROSS certainly does that. Robicheaux's complicated relationship with Clete Purcell is at its finest in this book. The pain that Dave carries over the loss of his wife and the absence of his daughter are palpable. But it is the other characters, Valentine and Raphael and Honoria Chalons that glitter and fascinate. Secrets have been buried in the swamps for decades, and now it's time for them to see the light of day.

James Lee Burke has written a truly awesome book in CRUSADER'S CROSS. Although he is chasing a serial killer to a degree, it's his depiction of the South and the history and the people that live there that keep drawing readers back. Fans of Robert B. Parker or Robert Crais or Joe Lansdale who have never read Burke will definitely want to pick this one up.

Dave Robicheaux and his loose cannon friend, Clete, are caught up in web of hidden identity and family intrigue. The peril manages to hit close to home as Robicheaux unravels the common thread that holds the story together. A few mild surprises and some good twists but no shocks here. The strength of this story lies in Burke's masterful character development and his ability to take the reader into the deep, and sometimes dark, musings of the lead character. The story line is the vessel and the message is strong.

Anytime you read a James Lee Burke novel you read both a mystery (typically with Dave Robicheaux) and you read great literature. Sometimes while you read a book such as "Crusader's Cross" you find that reading Burke's writing style means you are able to visualize south Louisiana on a summer night or almost smell the trees after a rainstorm. He's that good when he writes about Louisiana.

In this book, Dave Robicheaux has to deal with his own demons in his continued recovery from alcohol. In the meantime, a serial killer out of Baton Rouge is on the loose, an old "girlfriend" of his brother (Jimmie) may be alive after all these years and a family with a lot of secrets are all involved in a twisting and turning plot that never lets you down.

I've read many of Burke's novels. They are not just your ordinary mysteries. You have to read slower and enjoy the writing style and the scenery, the culture, the atmosphere and the world that Robicheaux lives in according to James Lee Burke.

It's worth your time to read this novel. If it's your first book you've ever read by Burke I promise it will not be your last.

My first encounter with James Lee Burke proved to be a descriptive and enthralling ride through the bayous and mysteries of Cajun influenced Louisiana. Disgraced ex-New Orleans homicide detective Dave Robicheaux who was bounced from the force for alcoholism, is trying to stay on the straight and narrow in the town of New Iberia.

A requested deathbed conversation with a sullied college acquaintance jogs his memory back to an unusual but noteworthy encounter Dave and his brother Jimmie had in 1958 Galveston with an attractive gal named Ida Durbin. Jimmie, extremely enamored with her was to learn that she worked as a prostitute. His plans to get her away from her pimp Lou Kale and out of the life were thwarted as she mysteriously disappeared.

The now unemployed Robicheaux's interest had been piqued with the reminder of the girl Ida. New Iberia sheriff Helen Soileau offered Robicheaux a job in the department as they were in the midst of an intensive investigation of a series of murders attributed to the serial killer known as the Baton Rouge killer.

Robicheaux becoming obsessed while conducting an inquest into the conundrum of Ida Durbin runs afoul of a powerful aristocratic Southern family with deep antebellum roots, the Chalons. The patriarch of the clan, Raphael had a history of known criminal enterprises including gambling and prostitution. His son Val, a celebrated regional newscaster plays Robicheaux's arch enemy in the novel. As Robicheaux digs deeper he becomes threatened, presumably by Val Chalons and learns that a contract has been put out on his head.

Robicheaux's past has brought him into contact with a variety of colorful characters on both sides of the law, meticulously described by Burke. His ex partner Clete Purcell, a boorish tough guy with little conscience, now working as a private investigator, serves as Robicheaux's guardian angel. With protection from an array of friends Robicheaux must sidestep a plethora of dangerous stumbling blocks put in his path. As the plot progresses, we learn that there are connections between the enigma of Ida Durbin, the investigation of the Baton Rouge killer and the Chalons family.

Burke, whose eloquent word pictures he construes with his prose describes his Louisiana settings with a quality of mysticism even when describing the squalid slums of the city and its sordid denizens. His character development is thorough as he imparts enough foibles in each to make them palpable and believable.

One of the beauties of James Lee Burke's remarkable series about Dave Robicheaux is that we come to live inside Dave's world of turbulent emotions, violent people, dangerous situations and perplexing crimes as though his world is our world. Few authors today can succeed in taking you out of your own life as well as James Lee Burke does, and Crusader's Cross is one of his most successful novels from this perspective.

After a series has gone on for quite a few books, many novelists find themselves stuck for where to take their hero or heroine next. In Crusader's Cross, James Lee Burke essentially restarts Dave as a character by changing his relationships in an unexpected way. If you've liked any of the books in the series, this one is bound to be one of your favorites.

A lot of loving care went into the writing. Sentences are sparse and bare where that evokes the right emotion and other sentences sparkle with bits and pieces of setting and emotion in other cases. Here's a description of a gunshot victim as he realizes he's been shot: "His mouth hung open, his stomach went soft and trembled like a bowl of Jell-O, his eyes fluttered and rolled as he went into shock." Talk about effective writing! You can feel it in your own body.

The story may seem to ramble, but that's the way Dave thinks. It's all part of the story telling . . . which is to help you be Dave.

When Dave and his half-brother Jimmie were just out of school, they found themselves menaced by sharks off the beach in Galveston. Just when they wondered if they would survive, they found themselves saved by a plucky, pretty girl, Ida Durbin. Between her lovely self and her beautiful voice, Jimmie cannot get enough of her. His passion leads to an unexpected fork in the road for their lives and those of many other people.

When Dave asks a few casual questions about Ida Durbin years later, he brings down a whole lot of wrath on his head. If you are like me, you'll find the story's developments to be both surprising and fascinating from there.

If those complications aren't enough, Dave finds himself back as a sworn officer of the law investigating a serial murderer . . . who seems to be taunting the local police about something or other.

What happens to us when we get too much pressure? The results are often not very pretty.

My only complaint about the story is that there is a little too much misleading information placed in various parts, which makes it all but impossible to figure out what's really going on. But it certainly will make you feel sympathetic to Dave as he flounders. I did like the way that the plot has so many unexpected twists and turns. I raced to the end and I'm sure you will too.

Crusader's Cross is Dave Robicheaux at his best, and he hasn't lost his sharp edge or gritty perspective--but age and life experience seem to have softened his character.

Dave Robicheaux is called to the deathbed of a life-long racist who Dave has known since high school. Troy Bordelon has some information to pass on about the disappearance of Ida Durbin, a black woman who Dave's brother was briefly involved with some 40 years earlier.

This disclosure opens long-closed wounds as Dave sets out to discover the truth about what happened to Ida Durbin. At the same time a one-paragraph addendum to a wire service article about the death of a local woman catches his attention. Over thirty women in the Baton Rouge area had been murdered, all unsolved, in the last ten years.

We are instantly tossed into the fragrant, untamed landscape of New Iberia, its wild, self-propagating greenery, the corrupt self-governing government, a shifting moral economy, past wrongs influencing present choices and behind it all, greed born of desire.

All the characters and ghosts of past Robicheaux novels make an appearance in Crusader's Cross but the author also introduces a sprinkling of new faces, one who has particular significance in Robicheaux's life!

I've never been to Louisiana, but I will be sorely disappointed when I do, if it isn't exactly like a James Lee Burke novel!

Armchair Interviews says: James Lee Burke does it again, and again and again. What a great writer. If you don't know him, pick up this book and start to love his writing.

Like William Faulkner, he does it over and over again: creates delicious stories made up of poetic writing and imagery - for me, a writer - he's a "writer's writer." The only caveat: his women. His new wife, a quasi-nun (no less) goes mush-mouthed as soon as she marries Dave. Perhaps that's what it takes to live with the Louisiana Terminator. I know it happened to Bootsie. However, Helen Swallow, Dave's former partner and now the New Iberria police chief, is a woman with real character...meaning true, whole-life texture. (I loved it when she put her big hand on Dave's and said, "I don't want to have to hurt you.") I gotta say it: there are some writers who, while not "better" than Burke, get women just right, among them Wally Lamb and Stephen King (read: "Dolores Claiborne" sp?). Still, I never wanted "Crusader's Cross" to end. And that's saying a lot . There are almost no contemporary writers who score my focused attention like that, over and over again...that is, with the Dave Robicheaux novels. Can't say the same for his Texas Ranger series. For some reason, I have a disconnect with those...never can seem to get through more than a chapter...Nevertheless, he's entitled to lose a few with me, since he wins so many of my precious moments. (P.S. I don't mind it that Dave has Clete do a lot of his dirty work. Still, it's odd that I love Clete almost as much as I love Dave. But maybe that's cause I'm a Gemini.)

It seems like every other book is about someone who is rich and was bad to Dave before he went off to 'Nam. This one is a little more of a story because the bad guy didn't know he was being bad to Dave, it was his half- brother Jimmie who was involved. But like a lot of stories, it comes down to Dave versus and old-monied family and their son (and daughter who of course has the hots for Dave). In this one, Dave gets a fourth wife who happens to be a vowless nun.

Anyway the story is pretty straight forward for a JLB story and the quirks are just him having fun. Whose the actual child of who and how is everyone related and who is the toughest guy around (usually Clete). But the bottom line is that Dave is a damaged human being and therefore we have to give him as much slack as he needs to get the 'bad' guys.

Hey, JLB, how many guys in their 60's can get beat up with a two-by-four and be at work the next day? By the way, how old exactly is Dave. He was around for WW2 and an officer in 'Nam. So lets say he was born in 1940, in 1958 he was 18, in 'Nam he was 24-26, that would make him 64. Isn't he about time for mandatory retirement? And wouldn't that make Clete a little old to be making a living tracking down bail jumpers?

OK, a couple of other issues... at one point JLB has a guy taking a boat from Louisiana to Florida by heading southwest which would mean he would have to sail through the Panama Canal and go around the world to get there, Florida is SouthEAST of Louisiana. What's with the product placements? He mentions a book by Michael Connelly which sounds like a commercial, and then has Dave drinking 'Talking Rain' which is a 'fancy' water company in the Pacific Northwest which I don't think even sells in the Louisiana area, much less in New Iberia Parish. What's the story????

Lastly, even though she goes to school in Portland, Oregon, doesn't Alafair ever come home or at least call on the phone?? When is Dave going to tell her about her new step-mom. Who by the way is the most understanding human being who ever lived, and per Dave is now inhabited by the soul of Bootsie!! Ok, I got it now.

Crusader's Cross by James Lee Burke is yet another view into the seedy world of New Orleans and its environs. Burke is a master at writing gritty tales that capture the flavor and spirit of the world he depicts. I know of no other author today that is as good a descriptive writer than Burke. When Burke describes a summer thunderstorm you can smell the dampness rising off the pavement. Pure magic. Burke has included Dave's good friend and PI buddy Clete Purcell (Semper Fi), so the gangs all here.

In Crusader's Cross Dave Robicheaux is alone, and unemployed. His wife is dead, his adopted daughter away at college. Robicheaux is about as low as you can get. A death bed confession takes Robicheaux back to the late 50's when he and his brother were very innocent. As Robicheaux presses into the disappearance of a young prostitute nearly 50 years ago he is "encouraged" to let it go. Factor into this story the Chalon family (brother and sister) and you have the makings of a real south Louisianna clam bake.

Crusader's Cross is rich with atmosphere. The story is full bodied and the characters memorable. This is a terrific summer read.