- Hardcover: 352 pages
- Publisher: Orion (9 Oct 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0752856529
- ISBN-13: 978-0752856520
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.4 x 4.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 460,663 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Last Car To Elysian Fields
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
The refreshing thing about James Lee Burke's new Dave Robicheaux thriller Last Car to Elysian Fields is that Dave, in many details of the case, is allowed to make a mess of things. We always get uneasy when a series detective is too perfect and the death of his wife and the departure of his daughter to college have robbed currently dry alcoholic Dave of his good angels. His bad angel on the other hand, his roughneck detective friend Clete, is still in rumbustious, corner-cutting violent business as he and Dave connect up the dots and find the links between an IRA hit man with a conscience, a long-dead blues singer, a priest crusading against illegal dumping and yet another of Dave's disturbed upper-crust exes. The atmosphere is always important here--the glamour, glitz and squalor of New Orleans and the fragile beauty of the Louisiana coastline and swamps. What is particularly significant here, though, is a sense of the characters having spiritual lives as well as a daily grind of coffee and pancakes and sniffing the fresh sea air; James Lee Burke writes thrillers with real heart. --Roz Kaveney
Review
'James Lee Burke has been knocking out consistently excellent Deep South thrillers for almost 40 years, and shows no sign of toning down the grit ... You'll get paper cuts from turning the pages so fast to find out what happens next.' (JACK magazine )
'Increasingly, his novels have become vehicles for a talent which is changing, still growing. Look carefully at what's on offer. What we are seeing is a good writer becoming a great one.' (Philip Oakes LITERARY REVIEW )
Robicheaux's return explores the dark side of human nature, including his own. Vintage Burke (DAILY MIRROR )
Burke's great strength is that he makes you want to spend as much time with Robicheaux and his other characters as possible. (Peter Guttridge THE OBSERVER )
This is a good, solid, gritty, forlorn cop story. As usual, Burke is at his most lyrical when describing landscapes and the natural world. (DAILY TELEGRAPH )
As always BUrke's lyrical prose confirms his status as one of America's finest writers in any genre. (Susanna Yager SUNDAY TELEGRAPH )
James Lee Burke's prose... has a muscularity and richness that is entirely appropriate to its Louisiana setting .... this is Burke back at his bayou best. (John Harvey THE INDEPENDENT )
There is no denying the sheer power of the writing which at times is beautifully poetic. There is a master craftsman at work here, and Burke's novels are an amazing achievement. (Mike Ripley BIRMINGHAM POST )
Passionate, angry and lyrical, Last Car to Elysian Fields reminds us what a great thriller should be. This is Burke at the peak of his form and that, really, should be all the recommendation anyone needs. (Simon Hynde DAILY EXPRESS )
This book demands to be read not simply for the gripping story ingredients but for the muscular poetry of its style and it overpowering sense of place. (Gerald Kaufman THE SCOTSMAN )
'Increasingly, his novels have become vehicles for a talent which is changing, still growing. Look carefully at what's on offer. What we are seeing is a good writer becoming a great one.' (Philip Oakes LITERARY REVIEW )
Robicheaux's return explores the dark side of human nature, including his own. Vintage Burke (DAILY MIRROR )
Burke's great strength is that he makes you want to spend as much time with Robicheaux and his other characters as possible. (Peter Guttridge THE OBSERVER )
This is a good, solid, gritty, forlorn cop story. As usual, Burke is at his most lyrical when describing landscapes and the natural world. (DAILY TELEGRAPH )
As always BUrke's lyrical prose confirms his status as one of America's finest writers in any genre. (Susanna Yager SUNDAY TELEGRAPH )
James Lee Burke's prose... has a muscularity and richness that is entirely appropriate to its Louisiana setting .... this is Burke back at his bayou best. (John Harvey THE INDEPENDENT )
There is no denying the sheer power of the writing which at times is beautifully poetic. There is a master craftsman at work here, and Burke's novels are an amazing achievement. (Mike Ripley BIRMINGHAM POST )
Passionate, angry and lyrical, Last Car to Elysian Fields reminds us what a great thriller should be. This is Burke at the peak of his form and that, really, should be all the recommendation anyone needs. (Simon Hynde DAILY EXPRESS )
This book demands to be read not simply for the gripping story ingredients but for the muscular poetry of its style and it overpowering sense of place. (Gerald Kaufman THE SCOTSMAN )
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
The first week after Labor Day, after a summer of hot wind and drought that left the cane fields dust blown and spiderwebbed with cracks, rain showers once more danced across the wetlands, the temperature dropped twenty degrees, and the sky turned the hard flawless blue of an inverted ceramic bowl. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
The first week after Labor Day, after a summer of hot wind and drought that left the cane fields dust blown and spiderwebbed with cracks, rain showers once more danced across the wetlands, the temperature dropped twenty degrees, and the sky turned the hard flawless blue of an inverted ceramic bowl. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Troubles in New Iberia,
By
This review is from: Last Car To Elysian Fields (Hardcover)
Dave Robecheaux's life has moved on considerably since the 'Jolie Blon's Bounce' episode. He is now a much more contemporary figure in 'Last Car to Elysian Fields' by James Lee Burke. It is always easy for a character to have no firm time boundaries but this time Burke is keen that we readers will have no doubt about the time of events in his latest novel. Burke has performed something that must be difficult, he has created a void, a space left by Burke's deceased partner Bootsie. This void has a gravity all of its own and its target is poor Dave. This time its not the despair of an alcoholic but rather the mourning and loss a partner must travel through, and hopefully come out the other side. The story has a pace that keeps one hooked as Dave and Clete explore the backround to a rich Louisiana business man. Dave's search is centred in the past where he discovers the reasons behind a prisoners disappearnce. As usual Clete is in the present trying to counsel Dave through his bereavement, as well as acting as a sort of human exocet device without any stealth technology. In an earlier novel Dave met a character called Legion who managed to both outsmart Robecheaux at one point and leave a kiss firmly planted on Dave's lips. Whatever one makes of that incident remains to be seen, however in the present novel Dave is humiliated in a far more personal attack. These strange and disturbing encounters seem part of a greater plot that Burke is planning that fails to fill one with anticipation. There is relatively little of Burke's rich and descriptive prose describing the Louisiana environment this time around. It is this talent that has, I believe, made the novels so addictive. So there may be a sea change taking place, a turbulence that is in itself unpredictable in its effects on the characters. In spite of these observations, a great read.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Burke Back to his Best,
By
This review is from: Last Car To Elysian Fields (Hardcover)
For those of you who, like me, did not think Jolie Blon was up to standard please persevere and buy this book. The depth and color are to the standard of the earlier Robicheaux novels. The action and characterisation are superb - and the local color? Well, I lived for two years five miles from New Iberia and the man has the Teche running through his heart.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Multidimensional Mayhem Unbounded!,
By Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 110,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER) (VINE VOICE) (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)
This review is from: Last Car to Elysian Fields (Dave Robicheaux Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)
Last Car to Elysian Fields marks a major turning point in the Dave Robicheaux novels. Dave seems cut loose from his few normal inhibitions and lives to regret his loose cannon ways. He's clearly a man headed for a crack-up, and his increased vulnerability makes him a more interesting character. The plot itself is as unpredictable and complex as you can imagine without becoming overloaded.One of the beauties of this book is that any one of several mysteries would have been more than adequate to have made this an above-average book. For example, an ex-IRA hit man, Max Coll, has a gambling debt he cannot pay off. He's given the choice of killing a Catholic priest. In a second plot line, a talented songwriter and singer, Junior Crudup, found his way into the bottom of Louisiana's prison system from which he disappeared with no trace. The prisoner turns out to have been used as a laborer by a prominent war hero who denies remembering the prisoner. In a third plot line, a 17 year-old girl kills herself and two others while driving drunk. She got the booze at a drive-through "daiquiri window" . . . and someone wants to stop the investigation into the daiquiri window. Dave also finds the man who miswired his house . . . and caused Bootsie's death in an earlier book. Someone is bound to pay for that! In the background, there are also porn stars, ex-lovers, sleazeballs, and other assorted criminals. Against this backdrop, Clete Purcel is his most outrageous righter of wrongs. After the book was over, I found myself thinking that this book must surely deserve to be a five-star book. Then, I realized that the novel leaves so little room for hope and redemption that I found myself more despairing about people than encouraged about them. I hope that in future books, Mr. Burke will also show redemptive qualities as well as the darker side of human nature.
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