The Tin Roof Blowdown

This is a police procedural, but in the swampy post-Katrina world that rips the dirty bandaids off the poverty and inequities of New Orleans, the party town. A group of kids from the 9th Ward use the confusion of the storm to rob a ostensibly respectable businessman’s house and trash it for good measure. They become both the victims of and the cause of several deaths. Det. Dave Robicheaux is a happy family man and deeply world weary at the same time, tracking down a hapless kid who has only had bad choices put in front of him but always manages to pick the worst one. Satisfying as a crime story and as a deeper commentary on the destructive impulse that compounds natural disasters into human tragedies.

Southern Lousiana cannot be depicted in a book by someone who visited there once. James Lee Burke provides one of the most satisfying glimpses into a unique culture, dark practices, strange and unpronouceable foods, stirring music, a world dripping with booze, twisted by crime, and inhabited by impoverished people who live in the clutches of a culture that has produced mardigras, boudin, etoufee, and zydeco.

Voodoo, drugs, sex, gambling, and names for common fish that no one has ever heard before; those things make up Southern Louisiana. But it’s more than a culture that comprises races of such wonderous mix that music, food, jazz funerals, and the like are mere products of the creative minds of a myriad carefree souls.

I applaud Burke for realizing that the story of Lousians is not a linear telling of history and present practices, or a before and after Katrina comparison, or painting a bleak picture of a subordinated people. No say me, it is a song sung by sea birds, to the rhythm of falling rain and storm winds, to the beat of large fish jumping for bugs and falling back into the water, and listened to by the ears of the soul amid the aroma of fried fish, boiling crabs, crawfish, and blood sausage.

If you want to hear the song and experience one of the most descriptive and colorful literary journeys of your life, read not only this one, but all of Burke’s novels. There are many people to hate, those that turn your stomach, those that you’d like to twist thir heads off, and those that you can’t hate no matter how hard you try.

One more thing. Not many authors can crawl inside the heads of sychopaths, an alcaholic, a Viet Nam Vet that has seen too much, a killer, rapist, a torturor, an ex-cop, and an impulsive partner that seems out of control. Burke lets it all hang out with these personas; and he does it like a pro or lay psychiatrist.

You must read this book, let the language become an intregal part of the backdrop and get past it, be prepared to stay up late, and have great fun in the process.

New Orleans was a song that went under the waves. Above all else, this is a gripping tale of how Hurricanes Katrina and Rita tried to rip away the soul of New Orleans. This has to be my favorite in the Robicheaux series by far. It has depth, a paralyzing taste of reality and the best villain yet! Ronald Bledsoe will not be forgotten easily. Beyond Dave, Molly, Alafair and Clete, even the sub-plots with Bertrand Melancon and Otis Baylor carry their own pathos and intrigue. This is one of the very best!

I have been in a hurricane, I know about Katrina, but you can carry some things just too far. Burke makes his point. Katrina was a terrible , horrible, and people should heed the warning on infarstructure. But if you don’t watch real holocaust videos or real vietnam films I would skip this one. I don’t have a weak stomach but this just gets too graphic.

Gave away first one of these books, Gad to get another to reread. Thus was first Jes Lee Burke we read. Now we’ve read then all.
Burke brings you into worlds you could never experience unless you lived there a long time & understood the culture. This one deals with culture during Katrina in New Orleans. And it is amazing for its insight into that experence.

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