Last Car To Elysian Fields
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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
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
'finely written, tightly plotted, morally complex crime fiction... mix yourself a mint julep... and enjoy an invigoraiting shot of bayou blues' (Boyd Tonkin The Independent )
'Burke writes with a lyrical sweetness that brings Louisiana's bayou country alive' (Sunday Times ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
'Burke writes with a lyrical sweetness that brings Louisiana's bayou country alive' (Sunday Times ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
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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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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format: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
Format: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
Format: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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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Not as Fresh as It Might Be, Still Worthwhile
"Last Car to Elysian Fields" (1994) was apparently the thirteenth novel published by American author James Lee Burke in his mighty New York Times bestselling detective Dave... Read more
Published 21 months ago by Stephanie DePue
Just starting to get bored with Robicheaux
It's deja vu all over again. The characters have different names but they're always the same.
The story is frustrating and the resolution unsatisfactory and (spoiler alert)... Read more
The story is frustrating and the resolution unsatisfactory and (spoiler alert)... Read more
Published on 1 Feb 2010 by Mr. G. A. Peel
One of James Lee Burke's best
James Lee Burke is arguably one of America's greatest hardboiled detective authors, and Last Car to Elysian Fields not only does that reputation justice, it strengthens his... Read more
Published on 23 May 2009 by Richard Kunzmann
This is Readio!
This is one of JLB's best. Which means that New Orleans and south Louisiana are brought vividly to life. Read more
Published on 22 Jan 2006 by R. W. M. Lally
Multidimensional Mayhem Unbounded!
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... Read more
Published on 18 Jun 2004 by Donald Mitchell
Multidimensional Mayhem Unbounded!
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... Read more
Published on 18 Jun 2004 by Donald Mitchell
Multidimensional Mayhem Unbounded!
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... Read more
Published on 15 Jun 2004 by Donald Mitchell
Investigating criminals who operate "with public sanction."
Describing New Orleans as "an outdoor mental asylum located on top of a giant sponge," Burke makes the city itself a character in this study of power and justice, murder and... Read more
Published on 5 Dec 2003 by Mary Whipple
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