This agonized accusation reveals some of the previously unknown trauma in the life of Dave Robicheaux, detective with the New Iberia Police Department, outside New Orleans. Robicheaux is a Vietnam War veteran with the emotional scars to prove it, an alcoholic who has finally beaten his addiction, and a fierce believer in justice, even if achieving justice means taking shortcuts. Dave's mother was murdered when he was a young boy, after she ran off and fell upon hard times in New Orleans. Some people report that she lived as a prostitute, but Dave has only good memories. He believes that she was murdered by two cops in the pay of the Giacano crime family, an issue which brings his present life into the picture, since his wife Bootsie is the widow of Ralph Giacano.
In one of his most emotional and personally affecting novels, James Lee Burke traces Robicheaux's search for information about his mother, her killers, and the reasons for her death. He is also, however, dealing with several other issues, some of which begin to overlap with the past. He is sympathetic to the case of Letty Labiche, a young woman on death row for killing a man who subjected her to constant molestation from the age of twelve, and Robicheaux blames himself, to some degree, for suspecting the molestation and ignoring it. As the days tick down toward Letty's execution, Robicheaux is hoping to find something that exculpates her. That search leads him, ironically, to discover information about his mother.
As usual, Robicheaux is dealing with crooked politicians and law officers, problems which have not changed since his mother's death more than thirty years before, with some of the same people involved in both her death and in recent crimes. When Johnny Remeta, an attractive hit man, begins to ingratiate himself with Robicheaux's sixteen-year-old daughter Alafair, who is attracted to what she sees as his charm and sensitivity, Robicheaux goes ballistic, determined to protect Alafair and to determine who is paying Remeta.
Although there is a great deal of violence in this episode in Robicheaux's life, both by others and by Robicheaux himself, Robicheaux manages (barely) to hang on to his sobriety and to avoid criminal charges for his violence. As the various plot lines converge and lead to a blockbuster conclusion, many aspects of Robicheaux's life come together, and many long-time predators meet their ends. More emotionally satisfying than some other Robicheaux novels because the violence is less gratuitous, Purple Cane Road combines issues from Dave's past with issues from his present, and suggests issues with which Robicheaux will have to deal for the rest of his life. A fine mystery executed with Burke's customary panache. n Mary Whipple
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