Swan Peak (Dave Robicheaux Mysteries) [Hardcover]

James Lee Burke's latest novel, Swan Peak, is another chapter in the life of his troubled character Dave Robicheaux. It is set in the wilds of Montana rather than the lush lands of Louisiana. An early novel, Black Cherry Blues was similarly set against the Montana backdrop of mountains and grazing land.
This time Dave and his friend Cletus Purcell are ostensibly taking a well earned break from the ravages of Hurricane Katrina. At one point Dave reflects, in a beautifully constructed paragraph, of how the intersections in his life seem practically predetermined as is the attraction of iron filings for a magnet. There is a sense of evil in the first few pages as Clete is bullied by some unpleasant characters who move him off the territory of a rich landowner. It is surely a craft of very few authors to write so infectiously and to create such a sense of bad things to come as does James Lee Burke.
The story is set around the rich landowner and some gruesome killings in the same area. It has, rather like an airliner, a smooth and progressive glide slope to a climax rather than a landing. As a reader one is drawn and even captivated by each turn of the screw.
Woven into this story are some old and some new characters along with just a hint of romance. One or two descriptions of the Montana environment are reminiscent of early Lee Burke writing about Louisiana and I have to say I wish there were more of these.
Quite where Lee Burke gets his material from is a mystery but how he creates such an art from whatever the source is very impressive. It is, yet again, a great read and I'm glad to say the author still retains those qualities of writing that attracted me to the Robicheaux novels all those years ago.

This is the first Dave Robicheaux novel since `Black Cherry Blues' to take the deputy sheriff out of his home state of Louisiana (laid to waste after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita) and into the mid-west farmlands of Montana. Not coincidentally, these are also the two states that James Lee Burke calls his home. Here Robicheaux is enjoying a trip with his wife Molly and big buddy Cletus Purcell, where they're ranch house guests of Robicheux's friend Albert Hollister - a retired English professor and writer.

Virtually from page one - which depicts Purcell doing a spot of solo fishing - there's trouble. Two employees of Ridley Wellstone, an extremely rich Texan oil man who has relocated to Montana, inform Purcell he's on private land, insult him, break his fishing rod (a VERY bad idea) and chase him.

From there the action kicks off as Robicheaux and Purcell become entangled in events at Wellstone's mansion - which he shares with his badly burnt brother Lesley and Lesley's wife Jamie Sue - and the search for a serial killer.

In a parallel plot, 6ft 5in prison guard Troyce Nix violently sodomises country singer Jimmy Dale Greenwood, a prisoner in his care, and pushes this gentle guy into attacking him with a homemade shiv. Nix is badly injured but recovers after a short spell in hospital. He then pursues his attacker, accompanied by a lady friend he picks-up along the way. His pursuit of Greenwood becomes inextricably linked with the Robicheaux/Wellstone story, and there's a crossover of characters into both plotlines that Burke controls brilliantly.

`Swan Peak' is the seventeenth novel in the series and displays all the strengths and weaknesses of the best of the books.

The strengths? The sheer impassioned poetry of the writing and the vividly described locales; the action scenes of measured brutality; the finely nuanced language and expertly developed sub-plots (even if they're the SAME ones he recycles, novel after novel!) If you've never read Mr Burke before you'll be stunned by the literacy on display: this is very powerful stuff.

The weaknesses? EVERY James Lee Burke character whether they are rich or poor, intellectual or uneducated, speaks in exactly the same way: the same cadences, the same tone and intonation. And each one delivers virtually identical, perfectly articulated insults. I am also a little tired of his predilection for peopling his books with strange-looking or deformed men.

Furthermore, every book has Robicheux describing a character as a `psychopath' virtually upon meeting them, and we are expected to share his snap assessment even though we've been presented with NO evidence to back it up at this stage.

But lets not dwell too long upon the faults, these are easily outweighed by Mr Burke's formidable writing gifts.

The events of 'Swan Peak' take place in a mythical America, and although the setting is contemporary, the action and dialogue could easily have taken place in the 1930s or in any decade between then and now. Some of the slang: button men, 'diming' is also outdated and a little quaint.

As usual, Clete Purcell (an ex-NOPD cop) is more violent than most of the baddies and is like a straining pit-bull on a leash. It takes a few measured words from Robicheaux to calm him down, and even then they don't always work. Both men are Vietnam vets, and are still visited by demons created from the horrors they've witnessed. These are very complex guys, and sometimes the line between good and evil is more than a little blurred. This is also the case with Troyce Nix - the most psychologically interesting character the author has created in a long while.

Lee Burke keeps everything in focus here and his mastery of situation and plot is never in doubt - and he delivers a quite fantastic ending. Even after acknowledging his weaknesses he is still palpably one of the greats of modern crime fiction. I can recommend this to fans and those who fancy trying `something different' for a change. Not quite the best book in the series, I award this 4.5 stars.

Dave Robicheaux and Clete Purcell are their usual selves in James Lee Burke's latest novel, but they seem spread too thin against the landscape of Montana: I look forward to their return to the claustrophobic and humid parish of New Iberia.
Swann Peak is Burke's most uneven novel for some time. The characters are as vivid and morally ambivalent as always, but much as I wanted the plot twists to be sublime, they were too often ridiculous.
I'm left with the impression perhaps of a tired author who is drawing breath after the remarkable Tin Roof Blowdown; and certainly of an author who is capable of much better.