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Light of the World (Dave Robicheaux) Kindle Edition
James Lee Burke's legendary detective Dave Robicheaux returns to try to save his daughter from a sadistic killer.
When Detective Dave Robicheaux's daughter, Alafair, declares her intention to interview a convicted serial killer called Asa Surette, he does all he can to dissuade her. Dave has always encouraged her ambitions as a writer, but as a father he doesn't want her to be exposed to a man so nakedly evil. And his fears seem well founded when Alafair is visibly shocked by the encounter.
Two years later, the horror Surette evoked is all but forgotten, as Dave and his family are vacationing amidst the natural beauty of Montana. But evil, it seems, has followed them into this wild paradise. Someone is stalking Alafair, and Dave begins to suspect that it's Surette - even though he officially died when the prison truck he was being transported in collided with an oil tanker. Is Alafair now the target of one of the most depraved serial killers ever to have been caught, or has she unwittingly crossed paths with a murderous psychopath closer to home?
Praise for one of the great American crime writers, James Lee Burke:
'James Lee Burke is the heavyweight champ, a great American novelist whose work, taken individually or as a whole, is unsurpassed.' Michael Connelly
'A gorgeous prose stylist.' Stephen King
'Richly deserves to be described now as one of the finest crime writers America has ever produced.' Daily Mail
Fans of Dennis Lehane, Michael Connelly and Don Winslow will love James Lee Burke:
Dave Robicheaux Series
1. The Neon Rain
2. Heaven's Prisoners
3. Black Cherry Blues
4. A Morning for Flamingos
5. A Stained White Radiance
6. In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead
7. Dixie City Jam
8. Burning Angel
9. Cadillac Jukebox
10. Sunset Limited
11. Purple Cane Road
12. Jolie Blon's Bounce
13. Last Car to Elysian Fields
14. Crusader's Cross
15. Pegasus Descending
16. The Tin Roof Blowdown
17. Swan Peak
18. The Glass Rainbow
19. Creole Belle
20. Light of the World
21. Robicheaux
Hackberry Holland Series
1. Lay Down My Sword and Shield
2. Rain Gods
3. Feast Day of Fools
4. House of the Rising Sun
Billy Bob Holland Series
1. Cimarron Rose
2. Heartwood
3. Bitterroot
4. In The Moon of Red Ponies
* Each James Lee Burke novel can be read as a standalone or in series order *
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherOrion
- Publication date4 July 2013
- File size1.2 MB
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This option includes 3 books.
This option includes 5 books.
This option includes 10 books.
This option includes 24 books.
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Review
A gorgeous prose stylist. ― Stephen King
When it comes to literate, pungently characterised American crime writing, James Lee Burke has few peers. ― Daily Express
James Lee Burke is the heavyweight champ, a great American novelist whose work, taken individually or as a whole, is unsurpassed. ― Michael Connelly
There are not many crime writers about whom one might invoke the name of Zola for comparison, but Burke is very much in that territory. His stamping ground is the Gulf coast, and one of the great strengths of his work has always been the atmospheric background of New Orleans and the bayous. His big, baggy novels are always about much more than the mechanics of the detective plot; his real subject, like the French master, is the human condition, seen in every situation of society. ― Independent
His lyrical prose, his deep understanding of what makes people behave as they do, and his control of plot and pace are masterly. ― Sunday Telegraph
One of the finest American writers. ― Guardian
The gentle giant of US crime writers, Burke always ensures that his Louisiana detective Dave Robicheaux grapples with hot topics as much as with his own inner demons. ― i newspaper
The king of Southern noir. ― Daily Mirror
From the Back Cover
About the Author
Will Patton's numerous film credits include Remember the Titans, The Punisher, The Mothman Prophesies, Armageddon, and The Spitfire Grill. He starred in the TNT miniseries Into the West and on the CBS series The Agency, and won Obie Awards in the theater for his performances in Fool for Love and What Did He See.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
I WAS NEVER GOOD at solving mysteries. I don’t mean the kind cops solve or the ones you read about in novels or watch on television or on a movie screen. I’m not talking about the mystery of Creation, either, or the unseen presences that reside perhaps just the other side of the physical world. I’m talking about evil, without capitalization but evil all the same, the kind whose origins sociologists and psychiatrists have trouble explaining.
Police officers keep secrets, not unlike soldiers who return from foreign battlefields with a syndrome that survivors of the Great War called the thousand-yard stare. I believe that the account of the apple taken from the forbidden tree is a metaphorical warning about looking too deeply into the darker potential of the human soul. The photographs of the inmates at Bergen-Belsen or Andersonville Prison or the bodies in the ditch at My Lai disturb us in a singular fashion because those instances of egregious human cruelty were committed for the most part by baptized Christians. At some point we close the book containing photographs of this kind and put it away and convince ourselves that the events were an aberration, the consequence of leaving soldiers too long in the field or letting a handful of misanthropes take control of a bureaucracy. It is not in our interest to extrapolate a larger meaning.
Hitler, Nero, Ted Bundy, the Bitch of Buchenwald? Their deeds are not ours.
But if these individuals are not like us, if they do not descend from the same gene pool and have the same DNA, then who were they and what turned them into monsters?
Every homicide cop lives with images he cannot rinse from his dreams; every cop who has handled investigations into child abuse has seen a side of his fellow man he never discusses with anyone, not his wife, not his colleagues, not his confessor or his bartender. There are certain burdens you do not visit on people of goodwill.
When I was in plainclothes at the NOPD, I used to deal with problems such as these in a saloon on Magazine Street, not far from the old Irish Channel. With its brass-railed bar and felt-covered bouree tables and wood-bladed fans, it became my secular church where the Louisiana of my youth, the green-gold, mossy, oak-shaded world of Bayou Teche, was only one drink away. I would start with four fingers of Jack in a thick mug, with a sweating Budweiser back, and by midnight I would be alone at the end of the bar, armed, drunk, and hunched over my glass, morally and psychologically insane.
I had come to feel loathing and disgust with the mythology that characterized the era in which I lived. I didn’t “serve” in Southeast Asia; I “survived” and watched innocent people and better men than I die in large numbers while I was spared by a hand outside myself. I didn’t “serve and protect” as a police officer; I witnessed the justice system’s dysfunction and the government’s empowerment of corporations and the exploitation of those who had no political voice. And while I brooded on all that was wrong in the world, I continued to stoke the furnace inside me with Black Jack and Smirnoff’s and five-star Hennessy and, finally, two jiggers of Scotch inside a glass of milk at sunrise, constantly suppressing my desire to lock down on my enemies with the .45 automatic I had purchased in Saigon’s brothel district and with which I slept as I would a woman.
My real problem wasn’t the militarization of my country or any of the other problems I’ve mentioned. The real problem went back to a mystery that had beset me since the destruction of my natal home and family. My father, Big Aldous, was on the monkey board of an offshore drilling well when the drill bit punched into an early pay sand and a spark jumped off the wellhead and a mushroom of flaming oil and natural gas rose through the rigging like an inferno ballooning from the bottom of an elevator shaft. My mother, Alafair Mae Guillory, was seduced and blackmailed by a gambler and pimp named Mack, whom I hated more than any human being I ever knew, not because he turned her into a barroom whore but because of the Asian men I killed in his stead.
Rage and bloodlust and alcoholic blackouts became the only form of serenity I knew. From Saigon to the Philippines, from Chinatown in Los Angeles to the drunk tanks of New Orleans, the same questions haunted me and gave me no rest. Were some people made different in the womb, born without a conscience, intent on destroying everything that was good in the world? Or could a black wind blow the weather vane in the wrong direction for any of us and reshape our lives and turn us into people we no longer recognized? I knew there was an answer out there someplace, if I could only drink myself into the right frame of mind and find it.
I stayed ninety-proof for many years and got a bachelor’s degree in self-immolation and a doctorate in chemically induced psychosis. When I finally entered sobriety, I thought the veil might be lifted and I would find answers to all the Byzantine riddles that had confounded me.
That was not to be the case. Instead, a man who was one of the most wicked creatures on earth made his way into our lives. This is a tale that maybe I shouldn’t share. But it’s not one I want to keep inside me, either.
MY ADOPTED DAUGHTER, Alafair Robicheaux, jogged up a logging road that wound through ponderosa pine and Douglas fir and cedar trees atop a ridge overlooking a two-lane highway and a swollen creek far below. The highway had been built on the exact trail that Meriwether Lewis and William Clark had followed over Lolo Pass into present-day Idaho and, eventually, to the Pacific Ocean in the year 1805. They had not been able to accomplish this feat on their own. After they and their men had sliced their moccasins to ribbons trying to make portage with their canoes through several canyons on a fork of the Columbia River, a Shoshone woman by the name of Sacagawea showed them a route that took them up a gentle slope, past the base of Lolo Peak, into the country of the Nez Perce and the spotted horses called the Appaloosa.
As Alafair jogged along the dirt road that had been graded through timber by a bulldozer, the wind blowing cool out of the trees, the western sun blazing on the fresh snow that had fallen the previous night on Lolo Peak, she wondered at the amount of history that had been changed by one brave woman, because Sacagawea not only showed the Lewis and Clark party the way to Oregon, she saved them from starvation and being slaughtered by a rogue band of Nez Perce.
Alafair was listening to a song on her iPod when she felt a stinging sensation on her left ear. She also felt a puff of air against her cheek and the touch of a feather on her skin. Without stopping, she swatted at her hair and pressed her hand against her ear and then looked at it. There was a bright smear of blood on her palm. Above, she saw two ravens glide into the boughs of a ponderosa and begin cawing at the sky.
She continued up the logging road, her breath coming hard in her throat, until she reached the top of the ridge. Then she turned and began the descent, her knees jarring on the grade, the sun moving behind Lolo Peak, the reflected light disappearing from the surface of the creek. She touched her ear again, but the cut she believed a raven had inflicted was no longer bleeding and felt like little more than a scratch. That was when she saw the aluminum shaft of a feathered arrow embedded three inches deep in a cedar snag that had been scorched and hardened in a fire.
She slowed to a stop, her heart beating hard, and looked over her shoulder. The logging road was in shadow, the border of trees so thick she could no longer feel the wind or see where the sun was. The air smelled like snow, like the coming of winter rather than summer. She took off her earbuds and listened. She heard the crackling of limbs and rocks sliding down a slope. A big doe, a mule deer, no more than twenty yards away, jumped a pile of dirt and landed squarely in the middle of the road, its gray winter coat unchanged by spring.
“Is there a bow hunter out there?” Alafair shouted.
There was no answer.
“There’s no bow season in western Montana in the spring. At least not for deer,” she called out.
There was no response except the sweep of the wind in the trees, a sound like the rushing of floodwater in a dry riverbed. She ran her finger along the arrow and touched the feathers at the base. The aluminum shaft bore no trace of dirt or bird droppings or even dust. The feathers were clean and stiff when she ran the ball of her thumb along their edges.
“If you made a mistake and you’re sorry, just come out and apologize,” she yelled. “Who shot this arrow?”
The doe bounced away from her, almost like a kangaroo. The shadows had grown so dark inside the border of the trees that the deer was indistinguishable except for the patch of white hair under its tail. Unconsciously, Alafair pulled on her cut earlobe and studied the trees and the orange glow in the west that indicated the sun would set in the next ten minutes. She fitted both hands on the shaft of the arrow and jerked it from the cedar trunk. The arrowhead was made of steel and was bright and slick with a thin sheen of oil, and flanged and wavy on the edges, which had been honed as sharp as a razor.
She made her way back down the ridge, almost to the bottom, then walked out on a rocky point that formed a V and jutted into space and was devoid of trees and second growth. Below she saw a broad-shouldered man with a narrow waist, wearing Wranglers and a white straw hat and a bandanna tied around his neck. He had on a navy blue long-sleeved shirt buttoned at the wrists, with white stars embroidered on the shoulders and purple garters on his upper arms, the kind an exotic dancer might wear on her thighs. He was latching the door on the camper shell inserted in the bed of his pickup truck. “Hey, buddy!” Alafair said. “I want a word with you.”
He turned slowly, lifting his head, a solitary ray of sunlight pooling under his hat brim. Even though the glare must have been intense, he didn’t blink. He was a white man with the profile of an Indian and eyes that seemed made of glass and contained no color other than the sun’s refracted brilliance. His complexion made her think of the rind on a cured ham. “Why, howdy-doody,” he said, an idiot’s grin painted on his mouth. “Where’d a cute little heifer like you come from?”
“Does this arrow belong to you?” she asked.
“I’ll take it if you don’t want it.”
“Did you shoot this fucking arrow at me or not?”
“I cain’t hear very good in the wind. What was that word you used?” He cupped one hand to his ear. “Want to come down here and talk?”
“Somebody almost killed me with this arrow.”
He removed the thin stub of a cigar from his shirt pocket and lit it with a paper match, cupping the flame in his hands, then making a big show of shaking out the match. “There’s a truck stop next to the casino. I’ll buy you a Coca-Cola. They got showers there if you want one.”
“Was that a bow you were putting in your camper? You owe me an answer.”
“My name is Mr. Wyatt Dixon of Fort Davis, Texas. I’m a bullfighter and a handler of rough stock and a born-again Christian. What do you think of them apples? Come on down, girl. I ain’t gonna bite.”
“I think you need to get out of here.”
“This is the home of the brave and the land of the free, and God bless you for your exercise of your First Amendment rights. But I only pretended I didn’t hear what you said. Profanity does not behoove your gender. Know who said that? Thomas Jefferson did, yessiree-bobtail.”
His teeth looked like they were cut out of whalebone. His whole body seemed wired with levels of energy and testicular power he could barely control. Even though his posture was relaxed, his knuckles were as hard-looking as ball bearings. “Are you deciding about my invite, or has the cat got your tongue?” he said.
She wanted to answer him, but the words wouldn’t come. He removed his hat and drew a pocket comb through his silky red hair, tilting up his chin. “I’m a student of accents. You’re from somewhere down south. See you down the track, sweet thing. If I was you, I’d stay out of them woods. You cain’t ever tell what’s roaming around in there.”
He let a semi carrying a huge piece of oil machinery pass, then got in his truck and drove away. She felt a rivulet of moisture leak from her sweatband and run down her cheek. A sour odor rose from under her arms.
IN THE EARLY spring Alafair and my wife, Molly, and my old partner from NOPD, Clete Purcel, had returned to western Montana with plans to spend the summer on a ranch owned by a novelist and retired English professor whose name was Albert Hollister. Albert had built a three-story house of logs and quarried rock on a knoll overlooking a railed pasture to the north and another to the south. It was a fine home, rustic but splendid in concept, a bucolic citadel where Albert could continue to wage war against the intrusions of the Industrial Age. When his beloved Asian wife died, I suspected the house she had helped design rang with an emptiness that drove him almost mad.
Albert installed Clete in a guest cabin located at the far end of the property, and the rest of us on the third floor of the house. From the balcony, we had a wonderful view of the wooded foothills that seemed to topple for miles and miles before they reached the Bitterroot Mountains, white and shining as bright as glaciers on the peaks and strung with mist at sunrise. Across from our balcony was a hillside dotted with larch and fir and pine trees and outcroppings of gray rock and traced with arroyos swollen with snowmelt and brown water and pine needles during the runoff in early April.
On a shady slope behind the house, Albert had improvised a gun range where we popped big, fat coffee cans that he propped on sticks at the foot of a trail that had been used by Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce when they tried to outrun the United States Army. Before we would begin shooting, Albert would shout out “Fire in the well!” to warn any animals grazing or sleeping among the trees. He not only posted his own property, he infuriated hunters all over the county by chain-dragging logs across public roads in order to block vehicle access to U.S. Forest Service land during big-game season. I don’t know if I would call him a rabble-rouser, but I was convinced that his historical antecedent was Samuel Adams and that ten like him could have a city in flames within twenty-four hours.
The sun had set by the time Alafair returned to the house. She told me of her encounter with Wyatt Dixon.
“Did you get his tag?” I asked.
“There was mud on it. He said he was going to the casino.”
“You didn’t see the bow?”
“I already told you, Dave.”
“I’m sorry, I wanted to get it straight. Let’s take a ride.”
We drove in my pickup down the dirt road to the two-lane and turned east and followed the creek into Lolo, a small service town at the gateway to the Bitterroot Mountains. The sky was purple and flecked with snow, the neon lights glowing in front of the truck stop and adjacent casino. “The orange pickup. That’s his,” she said.
I started to wave down a Missoula County sheriff’s cruiser at the intersection, but I decided against it. So far we had nothing on Dixon. I rubbed the film off the rear window of the camper inset in his truck bed and peered inside. I could make out a lumpy duffel bag, a western saddle, a long-barrel lever-action rifle with an elevator sight, and a mud-caked truck tire and a jack. I didn’t see a bow. I looked through the passenger window with the same result.
The inside of the casino was dark and refrigerated and smelled of carpet cleaner and bathroom disinfectant. A man in a white straw cowboy hat was at the bar, drinking from a soda can and eating a sandwich. A piece of paper towel was tucked like a bib into his shirt collar. He watched us in the bar mirror as we approached him.
“My name is Dave Robicheaux,” I said. “This is my daughter Alafair. I’d like to have a word with you.”
He bit into his sandwich and chewed, one cheek tightening into a ball, leaning forward so no crumbs fell on the bar or on his shirt or jeans. His gaze shifted sideways. “You have the look of a law dog, sir,” he said.
“Have you been inside, Mr. Dixon?”
“Inside what?”
“A place where smart-asses have a way of ending up. I understand you’re a rodeo man.”
“What some call a rodeo clown. What we call bullfighters. At one time I shot mustangs for a dog-food company down on the border. I don’t do that no more.”
“Were you hunting about five miles up Highway 12?”
“No, sir, I was changing the tire on my truck.”
“You have any idea who might have shot an arrow at my daughter?”
“No, but I’m getting mighty tired of hearing about it.”
“Did you see anyone on that ridge besides my daughter?”
“No, I didn’t.” He put down his sandwich and removed his paper bib and wiped his mouth and fingers clean. He turned on the stool. All the color seemed to be leeched out of his eyes except for the pupils, which looked like the burnt tips of wood matches. “Watch this,” he said.
“Watch what?”
“This.” He sprinkled salt on the bar and balanced the shaker on its edge amid the granules so it leaned at an angle like the Tower of Pisa. “Bet neither one of y’all can do that.”
“Call 911,” I said to Alafair.
“Can I ask you a question?” he said.
“Go ahead.”
“Did somebody shoot you in the face?”
“Yeah, someone did. I was lucky. He was a bad guy, a degenerate and a sadist and a stone killer.”
“I bet you sent him straight to the injection table, didn’t you?” he said, his eyes bulging, his mouth dropping open in mock exaltation.
“No, it didn’t make the jail.”
His mouth opened even wider, as though he were unable to control his level of shock. “I am completely blown away. I have traveled this great nation from coast to coast and have stood in the arena among the great heroes of our time. I am awed and humbled to be in the presence of a lawman such as yourself. Even though I am only a simple rodeo cowboy, I stand and salute you, sir.”
He rose from the stool, puffing out his chest, his body rigid as though at attention, his stiffened right hand at the corner of his eyebrow. “God bless you, sir. Your kind makes me proud of the red, white, and blue, even though I am not worthy to stand in your shadow, in this lowly barroom on the backstreets of America, where men with broken hearts go and the scarlet waters flow. The likes of Colin Kelly and Audie Murphy didn’t have nothing on you, kind sir.”
People were staring at us, although he took no notice of them.
I said, “You called my daughter ‘girl’ and ‘sweet thing.’ You also made a veiled threat about seeing her down the track. Don’t ever come near us again, Mr. Dixon.”
His eyes wandered over my face. His mouth was down-hooked at the corners, his skin taut as pig hide, the dimple in his chin clean-shaven and shiny, perhaps with aftershave. He glanced through the front window at a sheriff’s cruiser pulling into the parking lot. The moral vacuity of his profile reminded me of a shark’s when it passes close to the glass in an aquarium.
“Did you hear me?” I said.
“That 911 deputy ain’t gonna find nothing in my truck, ’cause there ain’t nothing to find,” he said. “You asked if I was inside. I got my head lit up with amounts of electricity that make you glad for the rubber gag they put in your mouth. Before you get your nose too high in the air, Mr. Robicheaux, your daughter asked me if that ‘fucking arrow’ was mine. She talked to me like I was white trash.”
He sat back down and began eating his sandwich again, swallowing it in large pieces without chewing or drinking from his soda, his expression reconfiguring, like that of a man who could not decide who he was.
I should have walked away. Maybe he wasn’t totally to blame. Maybe Alafair had indeed spoken down to him. Regardless, he had tried to frighten her, and there are some things a father can’t let slide. I touched him on the shoulder, on the pattern of white stars sewn onto the fabric. “You’re not a victim, partner,” I said. “I’m going to pull your jacket and see what you’ve been up to. I hope you’ve been on the square with us, Mr. Dixon.”
He didn’t turn around, but I could see the rigidity in his back and the blood rising in his neck like the red fluid in a thermometer.
Product details
- ASIN : B00CIVLWEM
- Publisher : Orion
- Accessibility : Learn more
- Publication date : 4 July 2013
- Edition : 1st
- Language : English
- File size : 1.2 MB
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Print length : 561 pages
- ISBN-13 : 978-1409128670
- Page Flip : Enabled
- Book 20 of 24 : Dave Robicheaux
- Best Sellers Rank: 177,355 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- 1,535 in Hard-Boiled Mysteries
- 2,094 in Hard-Boiled Mystery
- 3,926 in British Detective Stories
- Customer reviews:
About the author

James Lee Burke is a New York Times bestselling author, three-time winner of the Edgar Award as well as the Grand Master Award from Mystery Writers of America, winner of the CWA Diamond Dagger and Gold Dagger and the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière, and the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts in Fiction.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings, help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find this book to be one of the best in the series, praising its fascinating plot with lots of twists and turns. They appreciate the complex character development and wonderful descriptive prose, with one customer noting the natural beauty of Montana as background. The pacing receives mixed reactions, with some enjoying the pace while others find it problematic.
AI Generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the book readable and enjoyable, with several noting it's the best in the series, and one mentioning it kept them reading for days.
"James Lee Burke in my opinion is undoubtedly one of the best writers of the crime/thriller genre. This novel is no exception...." Read more
"...Brilliant and I liked the more sympathetic treatment of Wyatt Dixon and was left wondering why Clete was so ungrateful for that shot which probably..." Read more
"A good read with lots of twists and turns...." Read more
"Enjoyable book with an interesting storyline, my only negative being that it follows a bit of a formulaic plot line that we have seen before in..." Read more
Customers enjoy the plot of the book, describing it as thrilling with lots of twists and turns.
"Enjoyable book with an interesting storyline, my only negative being that it follows a bit of a formulaic plot line that we have seen before in..." Read more
"Robicheaux as conflicted as ever, great plot all the familiar characters reappear. Lee Burke on top form still" Read more
"...Unfortunately, as a keen Burke fan, I found the plot implausible and the characterisation weak...." Read more
"This is another great story from a master crime writer. Has you hooked from the first turn of the page." Read more
Customers appreciate the character development in the book, noting that the author crafts complex characters and is a highly skilled writer of thrillers.
"I have read and bought all of James Le Burke's books. He is a fabulous writer and terrifically skilled...." Read more
"...Lee Burke in my opinion is undoubtedly one of the best writers of the crime/thriller genre. This novel is no exception...." Read more
"...Hope JLB never stops writing these books - great characters, great word pictures, great plots!!" Read more
"This is another great story from a master crime writer. Has you hooked from the first turn of the page." Read more
Customers praise the writing quality of the book, particularly its wonderful descriptive prose and poetry collection.
"As usual excellent writing,if a bit grim by his standards,The best writer of crime on the planet.Keep going James Alan Roy" Read more
"The older James Lee gets, the better his writing...." Read more
"...Mr.Burke is a very male writer, always has been. I feel he should remain true to himself...." Read more
"...books, Creole Belle and Light of the World, up there with the best he has ever written...." Read more
Customers love the characters in the book, particularly James Lee Burke's writing style.
"Classic Dave, Clete, Alafair and the most entertaining Gretchen Horowitz...." Read more
"Love these characters and the way the next generation is fitting right in, but there were some plot issues I felt were inexplicable...." Read more
"Wonderful James lee Burke, so rich and descriptive. Great plot, fabulous characters that jump off the page...." Read more
"Bought as a present for myself. Love ALL of James Lee Burke's books. Saving this one to take on holiday...." Read more
Customers appreciate the vivid imagery in the book, with one noting how the natural beauty of Montana serves as a perfect backdrop, while another mentions how the scenes are easy to visualize.
"...He brings the setting into such beautiful clarity and his philosophy is always absorbing and interesting. So much so, you just want to go there...." Read more
"...This latest has many of the Lee Burke touches - atmosphere, beautiful but tough writing, strong characterisation...." Read more
"...Nobody can write prose like him. The imagery is truly magical. Thank you Mr. Burke." Read more
"...characters, the surroundings the landscape etc are all so easy to picture in your head. I can even "smell" the swamps!..." Read more
Customers have mixed opinions about the pacing of the book, with some appreciating the organic violence in the story, while others find it too slow.
"...He brings the setting into such beautiful clarity and his philosophy is always absorbing and interesting. So much so, you just want to go there...." Read more
"...The book dwells on vivid descriptions of cruelty...." Read more
"...magical , the characters richly drawn, and the inclusion of topical issues thought provoking...." Read more
"...of the most unpleasant books I've read for a long time, full of gratuitous sexual torture. In retrospect, I wish I'd passed." Read more
Top reviews from United Kingdom
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- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 September 2013Format: Kindle EditionVerified PurchaseThe older James Lee gets, the better his writing. He brings the setting into such beautiful clarity and his philosophy is always absorbing and interesting. So much so, you just want to go there. My America is James` America.
Dave, Clete and now the two girls remain fascinating with time bombs always ticking and the new "villains" are as ever, scary, violent and doomed.
A longer than usual book but remains gripping to the end. Will he write more?
It is so refreshing to see quality and work maintained through a writers career, where so many others get rich, lazy and begin to just turn the handle.
Well done James Lee Burke. Another winner.
- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 7 October 2013I have read and bought all of James Le Burke's books. He is a fabulous writer and terrifically skilled. "Light of the World" starts very well but declines as Alafair and Gretchen continue to appear. Mr.Burke is a very male writer, always has been. I feel he should remain true to himself. I admire Mr. Burke greatly and feel his characters Roubicheaux and Purcell are quite personal to him and should remain that way. I think these women added nothing and rather spoiled the book. I write this, as a woman. Great respect to Mr.Burke.
- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 March 2014As an avid reader of all the Dave Robicheaux novels, I have found his last two books, Creole Belle and Light of the World, up there with the best he has ever written. The prose is even more magical , the characters richly drawn, and the inclusion of topical issues thought provoking. I can't agree with a reviewer that he should stick to just Dave and Clete. I think the development of the 2 strong daughters as characters has added a much needed new dimension to the story lines which were becoming a bit repetitive. Their inclusion in no way feminizes the books for me. My only criticism might be that Molly is such a shadowy character. She is Dave's refuge, but not much else and I think the books would be enhanced if she was developed more.
- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 April 2015Format: Kindle EditionVerified PurchaseFor me JLB is simply the best. Light of the World is just one of the best books that I've read. All the main players in Roubiceaux's life are in here, including the larger than life Clete Purcel, Gretchen Horowitz, Alafair and Molly, all featuring front and centre in this story set around the evil that surrounds money and power.
JLB paints pictures that make me want to visit the place he describes. He crafts characters that are complex and leave little room for doubt as to what side of the line they are on.His insight and discussion of good and evil support yet another great Roubiceaux story, this time set in Montana.
Truly one of the greats!
- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 January 2014Format: Kindle EditionVerified PurchaseI have always enjoyed reading James Le Burke for the quality of the writing alone and this book is no exception, my problem is it never seems to get going. The amount of introspection and worldly wisdom spouted by the main characters gets a little tiresome after a while and I found myself sympathising with the local sheriff. The book follows a well worn path of bad rich guy and good alcoholic and celebrates the wild west tradition of the bad guys getting their comeuppance.
- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 November 2014Format: Kindle EditionVerified PurchaseAnother excellent story involving the "dynamic(if geriatric) duo" of Purcel and Robicheaux. This is a jolly good read by a highly skilled writer of thrillers which combine social realism with Catholic mysticism. The book is unputdownable. It is fast paced and suspenseful. One can tell that Mr Burke is a pedagogue. His work could/should be used by students/teachers of the art of writing. Even the pontifical aspects give the non USA reader an insight into the mentality of a nation where rampant religiosity is almost the norm.
- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 July 2017Format: Kindle EditionVerified PurchaseThe books by James Lee Burke featuring Louisiana detective Dave Robicheaux have always been well developed engaging atmospheric crime thrillers. This book is number twenty in the series.
This time the action moves to the mountains of Montana.
Dave, his family and his sidekick, Clete Purcell, have gone to the Rockies to reflect and recuperate. It just so happens that an escaped serial killer is also lurking in the valley. After a series of increasingly sinister incidents the action reaches a climax in a violent cataclysm with only the innocent left standing.
Unfortunately, as a keen Burke fan, I found the plot implausible and the characterisation weak. Of all the places to go for their vacation, our heroes just happen to be relaxing in close proximity to a serial killer on the run. The key characters in driving the story forward are mostly emotionally stunted; preoccupied with inflicting physical and emotional pain on others. The book dwells on vivid descriptions of cruelty. These are uncomfortable to read and unnecessary to the plot, given readers already know the perpetrators are cruel and sadistic.
Local law enforcement is incompetent or else corrupt and criminal. In this dark country justice is only achieved through the barrel of a high powered gun.
In summary, this is a bleak disappointing read. I hope that in his next Robicheaux book Burke will return to the high standard of the earlier books.
- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 July 2013Format: Kindle EditionVerified PurchaseI have ploughed my way through the Dave Robicheaux series and have thoroughly enjoyed living with Dave through all of them. The characters in the books are larger than life especially Clete. This book is one of the best in the series and is set in Montana rather than New Iberia. The villains are particularly nasty but there is the usual humour that comes with Clete doing what Clete does best. The story gathers momentum towards the end with an edge-of-the-seat climax. Can't wait for the next book.
Top reviews from other countries
- Richard B. SchwartzReviewed in the United States on 8 August 2013
5.0 out of 5 stars JLB's Most Ambitious Novel Yet
Format: HardcoverVerified PurchaseLight of the World is James Lee Burke's most ambitious novel to date. At just under 550 pp. it includes a broad cast of characters and a complex plot that appears to be sprawling but turns out to be tightly constructed and brilliantly drawn.
Dave and Clete are on vacation in Montana, staying with a successful but quirky novelist who has a ranch in the mountains. Molly is with Dave and she plays a larger role in this novel than most. Clete's daughter Gretchen is also there and so is Dave's daughter Alafair. Like Jim's real-life daughter, Alafair, Dave's Alafair is a novelist. She once interviewed a Kansas serial killer named Asa Surrette. He appears to have escaped from prison and is seeking revenge on the world and Alafair in particular. Alafair and Gretchen each play a significant role in trying to prevent this from happening.
Along with Surrette there is a billionaire industrialist who has a gothic family, each of whom is demented and dangerous in his or her own way. The industrialist manipulates the local members of law enforcement, some of whom are prepared to cross any moral line that might be drawn or imagined. Add to that mix a rodeo clown who had been significantly abused by his parents and whose brain was further addled by electroshock `therapy' and powerful drugs administered by the state.
In the course of the novel we discover which individuals actually fathered which individuals, which individuals turn out to be siblings, which individuals are responsible for which violent actions (and who hired them to do so) and what are the motivations for various acts of murder, torture and mayhem. The initial stories concern the escape of the serial killer and the murder of the adopted Native American daughter of the industrialist's son and his wife. Dave and Clete become involved when Alafair narrowly escapes being shot in the head by a razor-sharp arrow.
It sounds complicated, but the plot is easy to follow and all of the expected constituent elements are there: dazzling description of the natural landscape, extensive reflections on the nature of man and the nature of evil, dark secrets from the past that eventually surface, threats to Dave's and to Clete's families, violent circumstances that drive Dave and Clete to seek justice and justifiable vengeance. The latter is a crescendo of suspense and violent action that occupies approximately one-fifth of the novel. And this time Gretchen is there for the ride, with her assorted weaponry and Alafair egging her on, while Molly throws in her two cents, staring into the face of evil. The Bobbsey Twins from Homicide are back in a big, satisfying book.
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hermann maierReviewed in Germany on 9 August 2015
5.0 out of 5 stars wieder ein Meisterwerk
ich habe Jim Burke erst vor etwas mehr als einem Jahr zufällig gefunden, als Regengötter es in Deutschland auch in die charts schaffte.
Sein Stil hat mir so gut gefallen, dass ich begann Kritiken zu allen seinen Büchern zu lesen. Überall wurde Burke fast nur in höchsten Tönen gelobt und auch ich kann mich mittlerweile seinen Büchern einfach nicht mehr entziehen.
Ich habe dann begonnen die Robicheaux-Serie von Beginn an zu lesen und war beim dritten Band "Black Cherry Blues" hooked und zum Burke-addict geworden. Auch wenn die ersten Romane von Ulrich von Berg super übersetzt waren, wollte ich dann auch mal Burke in der Originalfassung lesen und hatte mir die Katrina-Sache "Sturm über New Orleans" / "The TinRoof Blowdown" in beiden Sprachen geholt. Die deutsche Fassung hätte ich mir sparen können, das Original war einfach nicht zu toppen.
Erst hier habe ich gemerkt wie bildgewaltig seine Sprache wirklich ist, und ich kann wirklich jedem nur empfehlen dies auch zu tun.
"Light of the world" ist wieder ein absolutes Meisterwerk. Von einem Spannungsabfall, weil der Held mittlerweile ja auch schon in die Jahre kommt, ist nirgends was zu spüren. Speziell hier vor der gewaltigen Kulisse Montanas setzt Burke seinen spannenden und teilweise mit Paranoias gespickten plot wieder unvorstellbar gut in Szene. Ein absoluter pageturner.
Warum dieser Autor im deutschen Sprachraum nicht bekannter ist, wird mir immer ein Rätsel bleiben.
Hoffentlich besinnen sich auch mal ein paar Verlage dieser Perlen.
- StefSReviewed in Italy on 6 July 2013
5.0 out of 5 stars A Greek tragedy in Big Sky Country
Format: Kindle EditionVerified PurchaseWhen Dave Robicheaux and Clete Purcel leave sultry Louisiana for a family vacation in Montana, they don’t realize they can’t leave evil behind. Suddenly, even the natural beauty of Western Montana is tainted by horrific deeds perpetrated by cruel and ruthless individuals. In this harrowing story there’s more than one monster and there exist sordid and invisible links between several of the characters.
To make matters worse, Dave and Clete are getting old and their instincts dulled: the “Bobbsey Twins of Homicide” clearly risk getting overmatched here.
This is when Clete’s daughter, Gretchen, and Dave’s adopted one, Alafair, take the field and become front-row players. Besides regaling the reader with great dialog, they take and hold the limelight in this convoluted plot, which is somewhat reminiscent of Greek tragedies and their somber atmosphere.
Burke’s prose is rich and evocative as usual, especially in his vivid descriptions of Montana’s majestic landscapes and mighty weather.
Someone may find that Burke’s narrative set pieces are becoming repetitive, that Dave Robicheaux’s moral conundrums and Clete’s signature attitude (“Full throttle and f*** it”) are beginning to get old, but – in this reader’s opinion – they have firmly become part of American literature and are getting more layered with every following book.
- Nathalie AugerReviewed in Canada on 31 March 2014
5.0 out of 5 stars Dark
I'm a fan of James Lee Burke's series with Dave Robicheaux and have been since the beginning. It's been interesting seeing his daughter grow up and mature along with his real life daughter Alifair who now writes mysteries. His courtly, deep South writing style may not be everyone's cup of tea but I find his ability to set a scene and develop atmosphere truly unique. In effect, Robicheaux is the opposite of Spenser with the economy of words, but both are enjoyable.
- Defa45Reviewed in Australia on 20 January 2018
5.0 out of 5 stars Scary
Format: Kindle EditionVerified PurchaseAlways exquisite and fast moving, the black hats, black and the good guys evergreen! However on the chronology Dave and a Cletus have got to be 70 years old and that really does stretch credibility.