Purple Cane Road, James Lee Burke
Purple Cane Road, James Lee Burke
6 Rating(s)
List: $25.99 | Sale: $18.20
Club: $12.99

Purple Cane Road

Author: James Lee Burke

Narrator: Nick Sullivan

Unabridged: 10 hr 23 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/26/2012


Synopsis

Dave Robicheaux has spent his life confronting the age-old adage that the sins of the father pass on to the son. But what was his mother's legacy? Dead to him since his youth, Mae Guillory has been shuttered away in the deep recesses of Robicheaux's mind. He's lived with the fact that he would never really know what happened to the woman who left him to the devices of a whiskey-driven father. But deep down, Dave still feels the loss of his mother and knows that the infinite series of disappointments in her life could not have come to a good end.

While helping out an old friend, Dave is stunned when a pimp looks at him sideways and asks if he is the son of Mae Guillory, the whore a bunch of cops murdered thirty years ago. Her body was dumped in the bayou bordering Purple Cane Road, and the cops who left her there are still on the job.

Dave's search for his mother's killers leads him to the darker places in his past, and solving this case teaches him what it means to be his mother's son. Purple Cane Road has the dimensions of a classic -- passion, murder, and nearly heartbreaking poignancy -- wrapped in a wonderfully executed plot that surprises from start to finish.

About James Lee Burke

American mystery author, James Lee Burke, was born in Houston, Texas, explaining why most of the lead characters in his novels are Texan. He has won two Edgar awards, which is a very rare experience, and is a bestselling author of two short story collections and over thirty novels. Burke is best known for his Dave Robicheaux series. His Edgar Awards were for Black Cherry and Cimarron Rose. Two of his series were made into screen plays with each movie having a-list actors playing the Robicheaux character (Alec Baldwin - Heaven's Prisoners, and Tommy Lee Jones- In the Electric Mist).

A writer must usually hold down other employment while they attempt to gain a degree of following readers. Burke's various jobs included.......truck driver, newspaper reporter, social worker, land surveyor, unemployment system employee, Job Corps worker, teacher, and finally, novelist.

Burke lives in Montana with his wife, Pearl, two daughters, and four grandchildren. His favorite advice was given by Irving Stone, when Burke was nineteen.......... "Never write a story to pay your gas bill......if you do, be assured your utilities will be turned off".


Reviews

Goodreads review by Lewis on August 19, 2013

As I think about this book, the words "too much" come to mind. Too much plot. Too much description of people and places. Too much disconnect between the story and the emotions. And way too much gratuitous violence. Here's an example of an overdone description of minor characters ... >> In the shade h......more

Goodreads review by Cathy on October 25, 2013

How can James Lee Burke get any better? I have no idea to that question. In this series, number 11, Dave Robicheaux wraps up some loose ends. Those loose ends have been woven throughout the series which I've been reading in order for a few years. Funny to me is when I've read other books in a series......more

Goodreads review by Aditya on September 14, 2023

Let me just start off by saying the writing is sublime. Someone can have issues with the violence, the characters with varying degree of ethical bankruptcy (I don't with either) but it is difficult to find better prose in crime fiction. It is as vivid as an oil-painting and as moving as an orchestra......more

Goodreads review by Fredrick on April 21, 2017

A young woman who murdered her sexual abuser is sitting on Louisiana's death row. Dave Robicheaux tries to help her cause and at the same time track down his mother's killers. Throw in a killer who fixates on Dave's daughter and you have a suspenseful read.......more

Goodreads review by Eric_W on November 15, 2008

Burke, one of my favorite writers, has an extraordinary gift for the use of similes. He can evoke the atmosphere and scenery that sets him way above other writers in the mystery genre. Despite the brutality, violence and corruption, the story intrigues, and Burke continues to develop the character o......more