Burning Angel (Dave Robicheaux Mysteries (Paperback))

I love Burke and his Robicheaux stories. After reading all of Dave's life and problems, it feels like he is a close friend and reading the books make me feel like i am in Louisiana. Burke's books are a real treat. Looking forward to many more.

Bertha Fontenot complains constantly to New Iberia detective Dave Robicheaux that her property on the Bertrand Plantation was deeded to her family a century ago. The real estate records are old and musty and written for the most part using arcane terminology. If there’s a transfer there, Robicheaux can’t find it. More is involved in this multi-faceted mystery, however, than the ownership of the Fontenot property. Moleen Broussard has a connection with the Fontenots that few know about and has plans for the property that do not include Bertha or her kin. Meanwhile erstwhile soldier of fortune Sonny Boy Marsallus who has a reputation for being very hard to kill has scared the socks off Dave’s old partner from the NOPD Cletus Purcell. Few men have accomplished that. What’s Dave to do? Episode # 8 in the Robicheaux series is one you don’t want to miss.

His first novel was published in 1965, and his thirty-third was published in 2011. Going back and reading number 15, published in 1995, gives insight into the evolution of the author. Those who are familiar with Burke will immediately recognize the detailed, prose filled descriptions of the flora and fauna surrounding Louisiana's Iberia Parish. They will also recognize Dave Robicheaux, the recovering alcoholic sheriff's department detective and several other pivotal characters. Robicheaux's home and the roads leading to it have become so familiar that a loyal reader would have no problem navigating the route from anywhere in the state.

With that background, it is possible to observe the evolution of Burke's style. While later books have fluid plots that feature a natural progression, Burning Angel suffers from a plot that moves forward by fits and starts. Whereas later novels feature unique and sometimes grotesque characters, Burning Angel characters are either vaguely incomplete or stark, vivid aberrations taken from a Dick Tracy comic.

That said, Burning Angel can best be described as another stone in the foundation of the works of a Grand Master. There is a brilliance in Burke's style that brazenly shines through the character of both Robicheaux and his sidekick, Clete Purcel. They personify the most famous antiheros of literature. Listen to Burke's description of Clete Purcel: [...]
Read this book. Enjoy it. If it's your first Burke experience, know that there is more and better ahead of you. If you are a Burke aficionado, savor the beauty of the prose. Find comfort in connecting once again with old friends.

I love almost everything about James Lee Burke including his prose, his characters and especially, the locations he writes about. But Burning Angel is the second book in a row where I had a problem with the plot.

As usual, Dave Robicheaux (deputy with the New Iberia Sheriff's Department) has way too much going on. First, Robicheaux runs into a "friend" who grew up in New Iberia and ended up being a Canal Street fixer in New Orleans. Sonny Boy Marsallus has dabbled in almost everything including being a Latin American mercenary and an independent working for the DEA. Marsallus thinks his life is in danger and asks Robicheaux to hold a notebook with damaging information. A plantation owner is trying to gain possession of land that his grandfather deeded to the families of former slaves. Why he wants the land is a big mystery, but the mob also seems to be involved. It is also rumored that Jean Lafitte buried treasure there. Lots of bad guys hover on the edges and there always seems to be a hit out on Robicheaux.

There were too many things going on in Burning Angel, and I had a hard time keeping them all straight. I'm ok with the the local crimes, the mob plots, and even the Viet Nam angle. But Burke gets very murky when delving into the world of clandestine operations in Latin America. Usually Burke wraps things up at the end, but there were an awful lot of loose ends hanging here. Even the epilogue wasn't much help.

Despite the plot, there is still enough in Burning Angel to keep me reading. Burke regales us not just with the beauty of Louisiana, but also her ugliness (her racism, exploitation of the environment, the mob influence, poverty, the crime, etc.). Robicheaux's new partner, Helen Soileau, is also a good fit. She's unlike any woman he has teamed up with in the past. She's not always very politically correct and sometimes shows less restraint than Robicheaux. Clete Purcell and Helen loathe each other, but a grudging respect develops when they pull together to assist Robicheaux. It's rather comical.

Even though the plot of Burning Angel was not as polished as previous books, Burke is still a better writer than most mystery writers today. I'm still determined to read them all and I have five more to go.

I've been reading the Robicheaux series in order and liked it so far, but this book was not up par with the others I've read. By comparison with the previous books, I found the plot disjointed and the dialog wooden.

I also thought The "Vietnam angst" was imagery overdone and cliche'. In addition, I felt that characters of Helen, Terry, Emile and Rufus were introduced abruptly into story line, and either given weak character development, or only developed later in the story. I think a basic error in this genre is to have a minor, poorly developed character be important to the outcome. Finally, I'm still not sure of all the details of what happened in the story and I thought I read it pretty carefully. I'd would have liked to see more of the loose ends tied up.

If you're a real Robicheaux fan you should probably read it for continuity but I wouldn't recommend this as your first book in the series.

Once again, Burke gives us the complete package; the honorable, battered, and stoic detective Dave Robicheaux, a man who has suffered the trials of Job, but refuses to compromise his stout moral code of ethics; an excellent mystery involving local secrets that threaten to defrock a socialite and kill the local woman he is rumored to be involved with; and the flavor of the Louisiana bayou country, with its unique Cajun culture as only Burke can describe it.
Robicheaux runs into an old acquaintence, Sonny Boy Marsalis, who hints at involvement in the US government's shady, mysterious dealings in Central America. Apparently, CIA-connected people want Sonny dead, but can't seem to get the job done. Somehow also involved in the mix is a local socialite, a gentleman from an old planter family who is hiding a secret forbidden love with a black woman from long ago. If the affair comes to light, it will damage both persons, perhaps permanently.
In typical Robicheaux style, Dave finds himself right in the middle of the conflicts, seeking truth where most would simply U-turn and live on in blissful ignorance. As Dave digs deeper and deeper, unpeeling the truth like layers on an onion, the story reeks more and more of secret government dealings, unauthorized killings, and rumors of a business deal that threatens to harm the fragile Louisiana wetland environment.
In his incredible prosaic style, Burke pulls all the pieces together to weave a story as morbidly fascinating as it is documentary of the lifestyle of the Cajun bayou country that Burke knows so incredibly well. At times, you can smell the dirty rice sold on paper plates in Dave's favorite greasy spoon restaurants, hear the bass and goggle-eye perch splash in the bayou's predawn light, see the heat lightening over the marsh and smell the ozone in the air as a sudden storm blows in off of the Gulf of Mexico.
I've never read an author that knows his subject in such intimate detail. Even Larry McMurtry must doff his hat to Burke in his kno! wledge of the people, culture, sights, sounds, and tastes of his subjects. This is one of Burke's very best.

Dave Robicheaux, ex-New Orleans homicide detective and now a detective for the Iberia Parish Sheriff's Office, responds to a call from Sonny Boy Marsallus and ends up putting his life on the line. Sonny Boy is an ex-tough from Iberville, Dave's old stomping grounds, a man who worked the streets with steely grim resolve but somehow kept a generous heart as well. When his business saving fallen angels from the Giacano Family grew too successful, Sonny Boy traded in the streets of Iberville for the jungles of South America and ended up working for years as a mercenary and for the DEA. During a brief meeting, Sonny Boy asks Dave to keep a journal safe for him. He doesn't explain what's in the journal, but does take time to say dangerous people are looking for it. Three days later, the woman Sonny Boy gave a copy of the book to ends up murdered, and Sonny Boy has disappeared. Before long, Dave unearths connections that link Sonny Boy to dangerous ex-CIA types and to the local Mafia figure, John Polycarp Giacano. At the same time, Bertie Fortenot, the black woman who helped raise Dave, asks him to look into a real estate matter for her. Moleen Bertrand, one of the old money families in Iberia Parish, has threatened legal action to get the black families off the land his family, according to Bertie, gave to the black families scores of years ago. Dave probes both cases, finding them inextricably linked and having to reach back into a case nearly twenty years old to tie everything together.
James Lee Burke is an amazing author with a growing body of terrific work. On some levels, his novels work as beach reads and on other levels they are morality plays and presentations of philosophical discussions. His work also includes healthy doses of social commentary, perception, and observation. Burke is, like his series hero, a man who has been banged around by life and has survived only by adhering to strong convictions and faith. He's written several Dave Robicheaux novels, and has another series about Texas attorney, Billy Bob Holland. In addition to his two bestseller series, Burke has written several award-winning standalone novels such as: THE CONVICT, HALF OF PARADISE, THE LOST GET-BACK BOOGIE, and TWO FOR TEXAS.
BURNING ANGEL is a good book of crime and suspense, but where the novel really shines is in the prose. James Lee Burke is a poet, a skilled craftsman who knows how to use words. He paints with emotion, and he textures his world in guilt and nobility, self-doubt and a resilience of morality. No one writes with a stronger lyrical resonance than James Lee Burke. And no one paints scenes or people with the same uncanny skill. When a reader follows Dave Robicheaux into a scene from the novel, that reader can feel wherever that place is. Burke also has the knowledge and love for those places, too, because he wraps up bits of history (both personal and geographical and political) behind those places and areas. The interpersonal relationships between Robicheaux and his family, friends, co-workers, and boss also round out the picture of a solid man rather than a mere cardboard character. By doing this, he also rounds out and lifts the characters around Robicheaux. The author is also skilled in the use of drama, tension, suspense, and mystery-especially when tying current mysteries to ones that come rattling out of the closets from the past. In one last tip of the hat to his Southern roots, Burke's title and thrust of the story alludes to one of the most Southern of tales, the Gothic-that bit of the supernatural world that is seen just from the corner of the eye that must be believed in or taken on faith rather than made tangible.
The only weakness BURNING ANGEL shows is in trying to tie everything together at the end. Events become blurred and a little disorganized, and a few big leaps of logic are made to give the villains proper motivations.
James Lee Burke is an amazing author who offers up scintillating prose, deep characters, and a rich tapestry of physical environment and history. Fans of Robert B. Parker, Robert Crais, Dennis Lehane, and Elmore Leonard will be happy with this book.

Burning Angel by James Lee Burke.

I've been reading as well as addicted to the Dave Robicheaux series especially when Clete Purcell is in the mix.
Trouble seems to follow Dave or is the other way around? Clete Purcell brings uncontrollable chaos into the already chaotic world known as the Louisiana Bayou. Expect the totally unexpected in this Dave Robicheaux mystery.

For all mystery lovers especially those hooked on Dave Robicheaux with Clete Purcell.

Once again JLB has Dave dealing with people he knew back in New Orleans and Vietnam. Again it's some one who grew up around the Mafia in NO and he dealt with when he was in NOPD. Again it's a member of the local mafia and gentry that is behind a problem that doesn't ever seem to go away (a bad upbringing and abuse of them or their mother or both).

What makes this one different is the inclusion of drugs for guns in south america and the american government involvement with both. An old friend from 'Nam shows up and gives a 'diary' to Dave which is purported to have info that will tie people in souteastern Louisiana to war crimes committed in Nicaragua. At the same time, one of the local gentry who has fallen onto hardtimes because of his involvement with a 'woman of color' is looking for a way out and big score. The big score is over use of his ancestral land for environmentally damaging industry which is nothing new in the polluted swamp-lands and marshes of the area around New Iberia.

There is also the touch of the 'supernatural' when after his friend Sonny is killed; he seems to turn up all over the area, and is seen by Alafair, Clete and Batiste. A nudge from Sonny, saves Dave's life and determines that one of the bad guys will take his own life.

There's a nice piece about Dave and Alafair, and dealing with your baby girl becoming a teenager and all that that implies to a parent. I thought he handled it very forthrightly and with honesty. Dave's as confused as to what to do as the rest of us mortals.

For me, at least, it seemed that he walzed through this one, getting ready for something big in the next.

A friend is currently working his way through the whole of the Burke body of work. I'm not nearly that dedicated, but I do like his books quite a bit. I believe that I've said before that the best thing about mysteries is the way that an author can use the plot to unroll a place or a time (or both!) for the reader. Burke does that very very well in the way that he makes New Iberia come to life in his novels through the eyes of his detective, Dave Robicheaux.

Burning Angel is the third book that I have read by Burke, and it stands up well to the other two. It has its flaws-- notably an overly complicated plot that falls apart just a little bit towards the end. But the flaws are well made up for by the strength of the characters and the feel for place-- both elements that are amped up here.

BURNING ANGEL by James Lee Burke is another Dave Robicheaux adventure among the mobsters and assassins of New Iberia, Louisiana. In the midst of turmoil caused by racial and class prejudice, Sonny Boy Marsallus, a smalltime hood, asks for Dave's help because several local mobsters are after him. Sonny Boy--a sometime soft-hearted good-guy--convinced many prostitutes under the mob's tutelage that leaving town would be in their best interests. Also, fear of eminent reprisals prompt Sonny Boy to give Dave a mysterious little black journal to hold for him. In addition, Dave attempts to help Bertie Fontenot, a poor black sharecropper, whose lands bequeathed to her by the wealthy owner, Moleen Berrand's grandfather, are being invaded by an enigmatic disposal company. Moleen's situation is less than favorable, too, because of money problems, a failing marriage and a renewed interracial relationship with Bertie's niece, Ruthie Jean. The plot is so complicated the reader can get lost as easily as moving blindly through a Louisiana, crocodile-infested bayou. However, the lush prose makes the trip a real treat.
James Lee Burke has been called "the Faulkner of crime fiction." The phrasing, descriptions, and word usage are so beautiful that the reader wants the cadences to go on and on. Burke was successful early in his writing career. But after his third book was published in the l960s, it was fifteen years before another book made it into print. One book, THE LOST-GET BACK BOOGIE, was rejected one hundred times. It was finally nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
Burke's prose is breathtaking. His poetic descriptions put the reader right in the scene where all five senses are pulsating and alive. When Dave has a continuous nightmare about his alcoholism, he thinks "the rush is just like the whiskey that cauterizes memory and transforms electrified tigers into figures trapped harmlessly inside oil and canvas."
The plot, however, is all over the place like the lush growth along the banks of Louisiana's bayous. Some subplot ends are left untied. We never find out, for instance, why the Blue Sky Electric Company wants Berti's land and is willing to destroy a hundred-year old cemetery to get it. However, the story is rich with villains like Johnny Carp and Sweet Pea Chaisson and gutsy characters Helen Soileau, Dave's side-kick, Clete and Alafair, Dave's daughter. Appearances of the burning angel add a fantasy element that is believable and scary.
BURNING ANGEL will appeal to readers who want an intelligent story exquisitely told. Some of Burke's other novels are BLACK CHERRY BLUES, DIXIE CITY JAM, and CIMARRON ROSE.

Not quite the best of the Robicheaux series - that would be either A MORNING FOR FLAMINGOs or A STAINED WHITE RADIANCE - but James Lee Burke's second-best books are still more powerful, more moving, and more vivid than most writers' first-best.

As always with the saga of Dave "Streak" Robicheaux and the lowlife elements he encounters, Burke excels at character delineation and at conveying the phosphorescent, putrid atmosphere of Huey Long territory. Fans of Cletus "Noble Mon" Purcel - with his truly poetic capacity for invective - will be glad to know that he's back, as is the still dirtier-mouthed Helen Soileau, who unexpectedly reveals a vulnerable side here.

Precious few living novelists can make me buy their work purely on the strength of their name. Burke's one of the few.

Set in the bayou country of Louisiana, 'Burning Angel' by James Lee Burke blends gritty crime fiction with an understated supernatural element that is both suspenseful and entertaining. Homicide detective Dave 'Streak' Robineaux investigates a double murder that involves Sonny Marsallus, a local gambler, money-launderer, and soldier of fortune. Robineaux isn't the only one interested in Marsallus; a shadowy cadre of assassins wants Sonny dead. During his investigation, Robineaux gets sidetracked into a land dispute between the poor, black Fontenots and an upper-class attorney, Molleen Bertrand.
Burke displays a dazzling command of language and descriptive power, and his vision of the South is elegantly drawn, where ghosts of the past seem close at hand. The main characters, particularly Robineaux, Marsallus, and Bertrand are finely honed, as are the pimps, thugs, and crime lords of New Iberia.
The book only falters in the depiction of the Fontenots. Burke is keenly sensitive to the plight of this family, cast as helpless victims to malevolent external forces (in this case an amoral white overclass). Although we empathize with the Fontenots, characters stripped of free will (and thus unable to influence events) are never interesting.
Nevertheless, 'Burning Angel' is wonderfully paced and well written, and Burke's soaring prose elevates it to dizzying heights. Lost loves and family secrets haunt these characters, and as Robineaux visits the Bertrand plantation one last time, Burke closes with an epilogue that is a tour-de-force of sheer craft:
"And like some pagan of old, weighing down spirits in the ground with tablets of stone, I cut a bucket full of chrysanthemums and drove out to the Bertrand plantation...all our stories begin here--mine, Molleen's, the Fontenot family's, even Sonny's."
The story of the South begins and ends on the plantation. On this ground Burke seeks the interconnectedness of things; life begins in a lover's tryst, and ends in a graveyard, as Lee's phantom army marches through the trees. It is a remarkable gesture, a sweeping vision of life and death that lifts this book beyond its genre into something else, something that rings true in the human heart, something that we call art.

James Lee Burke is a master novelist whose prose is so good that I begin to notice how good it is, and that distracts me a little. But that's about the only quibble I have with it. Burke's dialogue is imaginatively vernacular and must be savored rather than skimmed, and his evocation of place is topnotch. All the characters are fully developed and human in a Faulknerian sort of way; i.e., their lives and actions are directed by their heritage and experiences in ways they cannot easily defy.

If you are reading these reviews and have not had the pleasure of reading anything by Mr. Burke, then you need to get your hands on one of these Dave books. Start with Neon Rain and work your way thru the whole series.

If you are an audiobook fan, there is no better way to spend a few hours a day relaxing with one of these books on tape. Will Patton is my favorite reader, but Mark Hammer does a great job, too. I promise you, once you hear the first 2 lines, you will be hopelessly drawn in for life. The audiobooks start with Heaven's Prisoners (book #2 in the series)and Dave starting out with a new life on the bayou.

I have recommended James Lee Burke to all my friends and family and no one has been disappointed.

One of my favorite authors. Burning Angel is a very good read, but like all of his novels a little wordy, preachy at times. You know what might happen, but look forward to the ending and reading the next one.

Well, once again, poor James Lee Burke is back, with his patented mix of stale Sixties cliches and nauseating sentimentality about the glories of the Antebellum South. Each book in the series is like a cross between EASY RIDER and GONE WITH THE WIND, with all the phoniest elements of each.
Pseudo-liberal good ole boy Dave Robicheaux gets all bent out of shape when Eye-talian mobsters and no-account Yankees from the CIA start pushing around local blacks and stealing their humble little cabins for some nefarious Northern scheme. Poor Dave gets all misty just thinking about the saintly Robert E. Lee and his heroes in homespun gray. Bashing the mob and the CIA is the only way he can keep his illusions intact. But when the ghost of General Lee appears in drag, warning Dave to stop lying to himself about the stupidity and corruption of his own ancestors, it looks as though another AA meeting is all that stands between a corrupt, booze-sodden phony and his inevitable moment of truth.
This books reads like George Wallace wrote it after dropping acid and locking himself in a room with Joan Baez for two days.

While not his greatest book in the Robicheaux series, it is an excellent read, just for the character development and descriptive passages. (I have some bias because New Orleans holds a personal satisfaction for me.) Burke is a first-rate writer who just happens to work in this genre.

This is a classic James Lee Burke story. Sort of early to midway in the saga of Dave Robicheax and his cohort. I would not consider this the best of the series, but it is nonetheless a very good, engaging story with sufficient suspense, as well as the sort of supernatural/fantasy elements that show up in many of Burke's books.

The Dave Robicheaux novels by James Lee Burke have always had a spiritual component --see IN THE ELECTRIC MIST WITH CONFEDERATE DEAD-- but in BURNING ANGEL the supernatural darn near takes center stage with the presence of a real, honest-to-gosh no-doubt-about-it ghost. I loved the series before...now I'm really hooked.