Finished We 9/5/19
This is a paperback that I recently ordered from Amazon and received on Sa 8/24/19.
An earlier work about The Cajun Detective, Dave Robicheaux. I loved this one, and all of them!
The novel begins when Dave and his partner are transporting two prisoners to Angola. One young black kid, Tee Beau, who is accused of killing his boss. He allowed a truck to drop on his boss mechanic. The man was under the truck and the kid knocked over the jack. And, another man, Jimmie Lee Boggs, who is a vicious killer for the mob.
They stop because Boggs claims he needs the restroom, and there was a gun hidden in the toilet left by his girlfriend. Boggs kills Dave's partner, and badly wounds Dave. Dave crawled away and Boggs sends Tee down with the gun to finish Dave off. But the kid shoots into the weeds and Dave is later found and rescued.
Dave is on disability for a few months and during this time he is approached by a federal agent and asked to take part in a sting to bring down Tony Cardo, a new crime boss in the area.
The scam is to let the street know that Dave is a washed up drunk and has been dropped from the force, and he's interested in making a big dope deal. He has hundreds of thousands in fed money to make it look like he's legit.
The interesting 'hook' is that while Dave is setting up Tony Cardo, he gets close to the man. Cardo has a crippled son that he loves and he also shared some of the same experiences as Dave had in Vietnam. And both Dave and Tony struggle with substance abuse.
Dave reconnects with Bootsy, the first love of his life. And later he learns that she is suffering from Lupus. She had married one of the local crime bosses and this man is dead and she runs his 'mobbed up' vending machine business.
Clete Purcell is also in the story. He helps Dave in the sting even though other law enforcement agents do not trust Purcell. He runs a bar in New Orleans on Decatur Street.
I loved the book and I want to read all of the Robicheaux series.
A description of the book from its' page on Amazon:
"In a muddy, weed-filled coulee, Louisiana detective Dave Robicheaux begs an escaped convict for his life and is left more troubled by his lack of courage than by his gunshot wounds. Burke ( Half of Paradise ) proceeds to balance the resulting self-doubts of his tough, sympathetic hero with a complex, credible plot in his latest Cajun mystery. Robicheaux, a widower, leaves his small town for New Orleans, where he used to be a cop, to run a sting operation for the DEA. He engineers drug buys aimed at incriminating the local drug lord, an ex-Marine with nightmares and a habit from Vietnam, while trying to ferret out Jimmie Lee Boggs, the killer responsible for the coulee incident. Vivid supporting characters include Robicheaux's former NOPD partner Clete Purcel; an old true love now the widow of a Mafia figure; Gros Mama Goula, a juju woman; and Tony Cardo, the jumpy dealer whose inner struggles reflect Robicheaux's. Attentive to language and atmosphere, Burke delivers action on churning Gulf waters, in city streets, in deserted fields and within the souls of his memorable characters--and a fully satisfying resolution".
No comments:
Post a Comment