Cadillac Jukebox

Veteran detective Dave Robicheaux of the Iberia Parish Sheriffs Department is reluctantly drawn into a case involving the decades-old assassination of Louisianas leading NAACP leader. Aaron Crown is serving time for the murder but protests his innocence, and a Hollywood film crew seems bent on exposing the injustice of the case. Crown wants Dave to investigate. Simply visiting the man in prison opens up a hornets nest of mobsters, crooked politicians, and other assorted lowlife. This is Louisiana noir by James Lee Burke, the masterful stylist of the craft, who can equal anything written by Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, or Elmore Leonard.

In Cadillac Jukebox, the ninth in the Dave Robicheaux series, Burkes familiar characters all reappear. Daves second wife, Bootsie, and their adopted Salvadoran daughter, Alafair, now 14, and the three-legged raccoon she keeps as a pet. Batist, Daves African-American partner in the bait and boat-rental business they operate on Daves bayou-facing home property. His violence-prone former partner on the New Orleans Police Department, Clete Purcel, now operating on the fringes of society as a bond enforcer and private investigator. As always, the notorious Giacano crime family lurks in the background. But the novel features a host of unique new characters as well, from former KKK member Aaron Crown to the probable new Governor and his wife to a large collection of lowlife characters with names like Mookie Zerrang, Short Boy Jerry, Mingo Bloomberg, No Duh Dolowitz, and Wee Willie Bimstine.

Burkes facility with the English language never falters, whether describing the lush landscape of his home state or musing about Daves lot in life. As a police officer, he writes, you accept the fact that, in all probability, you will become the instrument that delivers irreparable harm to a variety of individuals. Granted, they design their own destinies, are intractable in their attitudes, and live with the asp at their breasts; but the fact remains that it is you who will appear at some point in their lives, like the headsman with his broad ax on the medieval scaffold, and serve up a fate to them that has the same degree of mercy as that dealt out by your historical predecessor.

And here is Burke describing the family of an incidental character in the tale. His twin sister achieved a brief national notoriety when she was arrested for murdering seven men who picked her up hitchhiking on the Florida Turnpike. The mother, an obese, choleric woman with heavy facial hair, was interviewed by CBS on the porch of the shack where the Hatcher children were raised. Ill never forget her words: It aint my fault. She was born that way. I whipped her every day when she was little. It didnt do no good.

No wonder Stephen King gushes about Burkes prose style! The Dave Robicheaux novels transcend the bounds of the detective novel. If anything can properly be called literature, this is it.

My husband and I started listening to James Lee Burke on audio we would pick up at our small local library whenever we would take a road trip. That was back ago when we would check out cassettes! Of course the library selection where we live is limited and so the first books on tape we checked out were out of sequence to the Dave Robicheaux series. We became so hooked on Dave that we started buying his books here in sequence which we now read on our Kindles. James Lee Burke has created a fictional character that has become so dear to us that we even traveled to New Orleans to meet friends last year to watch a football game and then drove home along Dave Robicheaux’s stomping grounds and ate at one of the places he ate. Burke made this character THAT real to us. It is seldom you run across this caliber of a writer with a story in his mind that transfers to readers with such a profound and long lasting impact as Dave Robicheaux, Clete, Alafair and the rest of the cast of characters
James Lee Burke has created….does.

I ordered a hardback volume of Cadillac Jukebox. The book arrived on time, and in excellent condition. The hardback had a clear plastic cover on it so no damage could be done in’ shipping. Everything was just right, as I am collecting all of James Lee Burke’s books, reading them in the order they were written Im about 60% finished the entire collection and should be finished in a couple of months.

Stanton Wingrat

Glenda, the Good Witch of Northern Oz, said “It’s always best to start at the Beginning,” but she was talking about the Yellow Brick Road. With James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux mystery and mayhem series, that ain’t necessarily so, it’s all Good, and the reader may start anywhere within this steamy, murkily atmospheric Southern Louisiana stories arc.

In this affair, Burke illustrates that “Some Saturday afternoon heroes will never go gently into that good night.” Patrician Golden Boy and former LSU quarterback, descendent of KKK lynchmongers, Buford LaRose is running for Governor of the Great State of Louisiana. His ultra-libidinous wife, daughter of a gumball vendor to cheerleader, aspires to be First Lady. What have they to do with the 30 year old murder of a Civil Rights leader? and what about the Tim Leary flashback guru guy?

Burke as Robicheaux in the 1st person does his usual deft job of leading us through a mire of local characters, backwoods highways and bayous and, for tunes for the trip, there’s that titular Cadillac Jukebox. /TundraVision, Amazon Reviewer

For me, there seemed to be too many characters and i had trouble keeping track of them. I found a tiredness in the characters, no one to cheer for. I try reading Burke from time to time because he’s regarded as one of our best current writers, but I’ve never read a Burke that sent me racing back for more Burke. So maybe it’s just me.

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