Dixie City Jam

This was not one of Burke's best. Decent throughout most of the book but he wrapped it up much too quickly and simply at the end.
It left you feeling cheated. Too simplistic an ending. It's like he got to a certain numbers of pages and then
realized he had to end it and tie up all the loose ends quickly.

i loved the characters and the intricate plot. i always enjoy his writing style and poetic use of the english language. also, his descriptions of people and places enable us to completely visualize an area of the country that we may not know.

New Iberia detective Dave Robicheaux has long recounted his fascination with a sunken Nazi submarine off the coast of Louisiana that he spotted as a young man while scuba diving. The sub comes to the forefront of the Robicheaux series as two different men with very different motives try to outbid one another for Dave’s services in locating the old wartime relic. In a side story, Dave’s friend and employee at the boat rental business, Batist, has been wrongly accused of murder. Dave needs money to go his bail and hire a lawyer for Batist’s defense. Dave’s old partner from his NOPD days, Cletus Purcell, wants to help out and winds up pulling two of the most outrageous stunts in a lifetime filled with them: he borrows a cement truck and fills a gangsters car with the contents of the truck. Later he borrows a bulldozer from the same construction site and (literally) plows down the house and outbuildings of the New Orleans hood. When Clete is on a roll, it’s hard to imagine the extent of the damage he can do in the lives of those folks he doesn’t care about. Not the best book in the Robicheaux series but still worth a read just for the laughs you’ll get out of Clete’s antics.

I was a faithful listener of the Dave Robicheaux series and liked the books for all kinds of reasons but it was a dreadful experience to listen to Dixie City Jam. The gist of my complaint is this: despite the fact that through the previous six books Robicheaux has been established in our minds as a highly capable and intelligent detective, in Dixie City Jam this same seasoned detective is acting in ways that are so brain-dead incompetent as to be unbelievable. Apparently the author (and his editor, if he had one) forgot to ask a vital question: "Is this character acting in ways that are consistent with the person he is, as I have created him?" He either did not bother to ask this question out of distraction or hubris, or he assumed that fans of the series would blithely go along with whatever he wrote.

For whatever reason we are left with a Dave Robicheaux who time after time makes naive assumptions and bonehead decisions as if he has learned absolutely nothing from his many years of encountering and pondering the criminal mind. He is a clueless victim in this book, blithely ignoring screamingly obvious clues and warning flags as he sleep-walks into troubles that endanger both himself and his family. Sorry James Lee Burke, but you were snoozing at the wheel when you were writing this book, and the few moments of tension you managed to create in the story were achieved on the cheap.

Again, I had been a faithful listener to the D.R series previous to Dixie City Jam. But this book was so very very bad that I had to take a 6-month break in order to become curious enough to approach the series again. Believe me when I say that you will lose nothing by skipping this book and using those hours of your lifespan for something else. I suggest that you move on to Burning Angel instead, where the author seems to have remembered his writing skill and his audience - and Dave Robicheaux begins to act like an intelligent human being again.

"Dixie City Jam" (1994) was the eighth novel published by American author James Lee Burke in his 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, in 1936, and grew up on the Texas-Louisiana gulf coast.

In his previous work in this series, Burke has frequently mentioned a German submarine, sunk with all hands aboard during World War II, underwater in the Gulf of Mexico. So is the twisted wreckage of an oil rig that exploded while Robicheaux's father was working aboard: his father's body, too, is under the salt of the Gulf of Mexico, now so much in the news due to another recent oil rig explosion. In "Dixie City Jam," the buried Nazi submarine assumes central importance when Hippo Bimstone, a powerful Jewish activist from New Orleans, requests that Robicheaux, formerly of the New Orleans Police Department, now of the New Iberia Sheriff's Office, locate the sunken vessel. The beginning of Robicheaux's search is enough to draw a neo-Nazi psychopath, Will Buchalter, who insists that the Holocaust was a hoax, to town, and it seems Buchalter will stop at nothing to find the sub first. Buchalter is pretty much Burke's usual hit man/bad guy, funny-looking, homicidal, psychotic. Of course, this being a book by Burke, New Orleans wise guys soon start coming out of the woodwork too, for reasons of their own: we have here Tommie (Bobalouba) Lonighan, and the Calucci brothers, Max and Bobo. And, to be sure, Clete Purcel, Robicheaux's former partner on the New Orleans Police Department, an overweight, heavy-drinking, brawling, heavily-scarred survivor of the city's tough Irish Channel neighborhood, as are the gangsters, is around to help the detective. We'll also meet the Reverend Oswald Flat and his wife; and a mysterious nun, Sister Marie Guilbeaux, who may have more to do with Buchalter than is helpful for the detective. Then there are some good cops, such as Lucinda Bergeron, and some dirty cops, such as Nate Baxter.

Robicheaux is of Cajun ancestry, and is still reliving the nightmare of his service in Vietnam. He has a drinking problem, and a tendency to violence. In addition to working for the sheriff, he still owns and operates a boat rental and bait business, while living in the house in which he was actually born. He is assisted in the operation of his business by a black man, Batist, whom we've met before, and will see again. Robicheaux is, by this point, on his third wife, Bootsie, who has developed the generally fatal disease lupus. The detective's quietly, illegally adopted daughter, an ethnic Hispanic, whom he's named Alafair, has morphed into a fairly ordinary American teenager, and she's got her pet, the three-legged raccoon Tripod, whom we've met before and will meet again.

The novel at hand is rather longer than Burke's usual, and is shot through with discussion of New Orleans' music: Sam Philips' Memphis Sun Studios, where Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, and Jerry Lee Lewis got their starts. Jimmie Clanton's "Just a Dream" the most popular song on the jukebox in Robicheaux's salad year, 1957. And the locally- beloved Fat Man, Fats Domino. Burke also gives us a couple of pretty grotesque characters, a hallmark of Southern literature. He continues to write with energy, passion and power, and the longer length seems, if anything, to have given him a bigger canvas than usual to work upon. In fact, like Michael Connelly, the creator of a detective whom he named Hieronymus Bosch, after the great 16th century Dutch artist that used all his canvas to the corners, jamming it full of grotesque characters, Burke in this book seems to have used every inch of his larger canvas, and has himself given us some memorable grotesques.
More than anything else, seems to me, 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. 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, including the more recent Jolie Blon's Bounce, and Purple Cane Road (Dave Robicheaux Mysteries) have been New York Times bestsellers. But "Dixie City Jam" is certainly one of the more outstanding books in this series.

After reading a bunch of bestseller but lackluster mysteries this summer, it was wonderful to discover an author of some substance-James Lee Burke. Dixie City Jam (the Dave Robicheaux series) reads more like a mystery written by a novelist, and Burke's literary style is unmatched by most mystery writers today.

Dave Robicheaux, a former New Orleans PD policeman, is now a detective with the New Iberia sheriff's office. Robicheaux discovered a Nazi u-boat in Gulf waters, and now a number of people are lining up to find the sub's location. Will Buchalter is a spooky, brutal, neo-Nazi who is willing to stop at nothing to get his hands on the sub, and haunts Robicheaux and his family (leaving dead bodies in his wake). There are also several subplots involving drug deals, prostitution, mobsters, crooked cops, and a vigilante murderer killing drug dealers and cutting out their hearts.

Burke's characters are a colorful bunch, and Robicheaux's former partner and now PI, Cletus Purcel, is probably the best of the bunch. He will have you in stitches as he goes against the mob. New Orleans is also a major player in Dixie City Jam, and the sultry, sensuous, steamy city (the locals call it The Big Sleazy) provides a fitting backdrop.

Burke's writing is top notch, and his dialog between characters reads like Mike Hammer meets Spenser. Robicheaux has a background in literature (something rare in law enforcement) and it's easy to see that Burke is a serious writer who shares a love of literature with his fictional detective. Burke has received a number of deserved literary awards and was even nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

The only negative about Dixie City Jam is that some of it seemed a bit unbelievable. How Buchalter could have gone on a crime spree lasting decades while eluding detection or capture was a stretch. But this doesn't detract from this otherwise fabulous book. Burke is another writer who I'm now motivated to read everything he's written. I've already started Last Car to Elysian Fields.

For the first time in a long time, Dave Robicheaux's life seems to be going well. His wife Bootsie's Lupus is under control, his business is doing well as is his daughter Alafair. Then Dave sees an old german sub, sunk during WWII and all kinds of strange things begin to happen in his life.

This time the woman in Dave and Clete's lives are the targets of a lunatic, who has been murdering people all over the world. He has a compatriot who will surprise you later in the book. Most of the time Dave is busy chasing after this guy who seems to be a ghost and lives completely off the radar. No history or background and nothing in the NCIS computer files.

Clete has more fun in this book than is legal; he fills a guys car with cement from a stolen cement mixer, and drives an earth grader through the guys brothers house. In between he gets some great lines and gets to spend a week fishing, while Dave runs around southeastern Louisiana chasing his ghost.

As always, come the end, Dave works everything out; the good guys win and the bad guys get their just desserts. There is a great line from Stephen Crane in the book that I'll paraphrase as:

Most people aren't nouns, their adverbs, spending their time modifying situation and dangers they have no control over.

I've working my way through the Robicheaux series, and I must say this is the best by far; I was under the impression that Burke had hit his peak with BLACK CHERRY BLUES. As the series progresses Dave becomes a more intriguing figure--the demons and inner conflicts that Dave deals with mentally whips you by the end of this novel--and the "bad guys" take on an image of pure genius. The novel revolves around a sunken SUB, and the ramifications of Robicheaux knowing the exact location. The book takes off when the trouble invades Dave's home, and threatens to tear the fabric of his marriage. I've read many crime novels and I must say that Will Buchalter is one of the best characters to come about in a long time. The lucky ones that have read the entire series must agree with me when I say Clete Purcel is in rare form in this novel. For the casual Burke fans, this book is being developed into a movie by Tommy Lee Jones; after finishing the novel, I can see why. This is a great book.

Only a writer as talented as Burke could get away with a plot this far-fetched. Nazi submarines, nuns and psychopaths-- these are subjects that in the hands of a lesser writer would make us cringe and close the book. Burke somehow almost makes it believable. He definitely makes the material into a one of his trademark dark and absorbing reads.

Bit by bit, Robicheaux is having his innocence and idealism chipped away. Dixie City Jam does not reveal what the readers will find underneath.

I can believe that this is not the best of the Robicheaux books. The premise of the plot is just a bit too far-fetched. Still, the characters have some truly brilliant moments-- I particularly liked Tommy Bobalouba. This was the second Burke that I have read, and it only strengthens my desire to read the other books in the series.

Warning: spoilers---
This is my first Burke novel. It won't be my last, but I sure hope that Robicheaux wises up in the other books. Let me count the ways in which he demonstrates he's not smart enough to dress and feed himself, let alone be a cop:

1. Twisted bad guy attacks and terrorizes wife. What does hero cop husband do? Does he tell his tough-as-nails fearless hired man, who works all day a hundred feet away from the house about it, and to keep an eye on her? No. Does Bootsie the wife go "yo, husband, I'm taking a little vacation until you catch this lunatic."? No. Does Robicheaux stay home himself? No, he gallivants all over the landscape and when he comes home gets ambushed by the exact same bad guy, who has an accomplice and Bootsie tied and gagged.

2. All kinds of people, both cops and colorful bad guys, warn him that he's up against something seriously bad and scary. He goes "huh" and leaves it at that.

3. Twisted bad guy breaks into the house a couple nights later, while Bootsie and hero cop are sleeping, and watches them sleep. Then writes a message on the mirror and leaves other obvious signs he was there. Meanwhile, Robicheaux doesn't have nightmares about twisted bad guy like a normal person, oh no, he has nightmares about something a creepy little preacher told him, and sleeps right through this guy breaking through a deadbolt and sneaking around his house. No alarm system, no dog, none of his tough but colorful cop friends helping out.

4. Three times the twisted bad guy invades their home and does horrible things. But Bootsie still stays put, and Robicheaus gets dumber, which hardly seem possible. Every strange car that creeps down their driveway he dismisses as nothing important. Then he gets caught by the twisted bad guy in the absolute stupidest ambush of all time- a truck supposedly broken down just down his street, with a suspicious vehicle lurking behind it. He walks right into it, not a care in the world.

Burke creates a nice sense of atmosphere and locale, and he draws a colorful cast of characters. Men characters, that is, the women might as well be cardboard cutouts. Bootsie gets terrorized, and she's worried about husband? Yeah, whatever! Still, it's a lively, engrossing read. I just wish the hero cop wasn't such a dunce.

Some crime stories remind me of a fast food experience. Some remind me of technical dissertations on the food science. Burke's crime stories are multi-course gourmet meals. I leave the table with the memory of many original flavors and ingredients and it takes a while for that memory to fade.

Dixie City Jam is no exception. Burke has a gift for storytelling, colorful characters, articulate and realistic dialogue and a very convincing portrayal of a protagonist hero (Robicheaux) who is maintaining his code, compassion and sobriety despite his encounters with evil.

If you have any penchant for Burke's style, I might suggest the detective stories by James Crumely

I actually stumbled upon James Lee Burke like this...I used to live in Louisiana and Mississippi for a short while when I was in the military and so when I moved back to ugly, cold Illinois I couldn't stop thinking about the Gulf south states. I went to the library and searched for authors of fiction where the setting was Louisiana or Mississippi and found his books. I started at the beginning of the Dave Robicheaux series which is Neon Rain. Needless to say, I loved his books so much that I read every single one of them, all the way through to Creole Belle (2012) and started over again. I just finished Dixie City Jam for the second time, and am now on to the next - Burning Angel. I forgot how much I enjoyed Dixie City Jam, and it's main villains actually scared me.

In any case - read any and all JLB Dave Robiecheaux series books - his writing is so beautiful and poetic, it actually compelled my husband and I to visit New Iberia and Breaux Bridge (the cities in LA in which the novels are mostly set) for our 10th anniversary! (Which I also highly recommend)! That's how compelling his writing is.

I cannot imagine a disappointing book in this gorgeously written series. But if I spent $10 for an ebook, I expect basic proofreading. Not in this case. For example, "corner" usually shows as"comer." Let's be professional, team.

Great tale. Really well written.I like Streak and the loyalty he shows to his friends. A few to many twists and it helps to have read one or two of these prior books. But all in all a great story. Burke get's the story told! I have loved all of these books. Price could be better.

As usual, infused with interesting Acadian history, lore and geographic characteristics. Add in the cool Dave Robicheaux and his cast of characters and you've got chapter 7 in a fascinating James Lee Burke novel.

What a wonderful read this suspense, thriller and murder mystery was. I really hated to stop the story to eat or to sleep. Dave Robicheau is magnificant in his role as city policeman and hiis assistant Cleat Purcell keep the mystery rolling along. New Orleans, La. was shown to hold as much spice as any can of red hot chiles.

This is my seventh Robicheaux book and I think it may b thebest one yet. Dave is his usual, hard as nails, self. Sometimes I would like to slap his buddy Clete myself. He stays in trouble of his own making. Yes, I think I would have pulled the trigger on Will Buchalter. The things he does to Dave and his family will make you want to do the same. Burke is great with his use of the language and description of the country. He makes you feel like you are there. Lots of good characters in this one. Good mystery and lots of action. Can Robicheaux save Clete, what does the German sub have that several people want? A good read.

This was my first exposure to James Burke. I once lived in New Orleans and my best friend lives in New Iberia today. It really brought out the true feel of South Louisiana. The plot about Nazis and the people's ties to the water interwoven with the high drama of day to day life. Things like that CAN happen. I really loved this book and have read several others. Terrific!!