Jolie Blon's Bounce [Hardcover]

Like James Lee Burke's other Dave Robichaux novels, Jolie Blon's Bounce has at its core a sense of people as driven by demons; both their own demons--Robichaux's controlled alcoholism and the dark rages that lie behind it--and the demons handed down to them by history. Robichaux knows that gifted young black musician Tee Bobby Hulin was present at the rape and murder of a young white woman--he is also certain that Hulin was neither rapist nor murderer. Equally, though he has no grounds for certainty about it, he has a sense that the killing of the sister of a local mobster has nothing to do with the case and that the interest of an eccentric young bible salesman in the tough woman DA Shanahan and the woman private eye Zerelda is not harmless at all. Robichaux wants to play cases by the book--this gets harder when he is brutalised by a mad old racist and when his friends find themselves in jeopardy.

James Lee Burke has always been intelligent about the edge of things, and here he is taking his hero to the edge of police procedure and the edge of the real--some of this case skirts battles with principalities and powers. This is one of the nerviest and darkest of this extraordinary series and one of the most poetic--an odd word to use of a thriller, yet the right one. --Roz Kaveney

The Times 13 July 'Hot or what?' column Guardian 3 August 'This author is more and more a writer of our times' Mark Lawson Observer 18 August 'Critics are running out of superlatives to describe the writing of James Lee Burke. He has been compared to a bewildering range of authors... However no comparisons are needed. James Lee Burke is an American original.' Evening Standard 12 August 'With each new novel James Lee Burke reaffirms his status as the best crime writer around' FHM September issue 'Brutal, unsettling and brilliant. ***** ' Literary Review August '[James Lee Burke] has always been a writer of infinite promise and surprise. The promises have all been kept. The surprises go on and on.'

Small-time black hustler Tee Bobby Hulin is partly redeemed, in Robicheaux's eyes, by a rare musical gift. Three men are present when Amanda Boudreau is raped and murdered, and Tee Bobby's prints are found at the crime scene. Dave reckons he's innocent, and Tee Bobby pleads so, then attempts suicide in his holding cell. Why? Soon after, hooker and junkie Linda Zeroski is beaten to death by a man wearing leather gloves who, with great care and precision, crushes every bone in her face. Louisiana's murky history casts a long shadow in the work of James Lee Burke, but nowhere longer than here, with the LaSalles family, who settled there before the Louisiana Purchase and built their wealth upon the backs of slave labour. When lawyer Perry LaSalles takes on the defence of Tee Bobby Hulin, Dave knows his motives are fuelled by guilt. For Tee Bobby's grandmother Ladice was seduced by Perry's grandfather, and Amanda Boudreau's death is related to events that happened long before Tee Bobby was born. In this rich and compelling novel James Lee Burke weaves a web of plots and subplots involving perfectly observed characters. Dense with passion and compassion, Burke's novels get better and better.

James Lee Burke is the author of nineteen previous novels, including eleven featuring Detective Dave Robicheaux. He lives with his wife, Pearl, in Missoula, Montana and New Iberia, Louisiana.