Black Cherry Blues

I like all of the Dave Robicheaux novels, but this is probably my favorite. Burke captures the sights and sounds of the Louisiana Bayou with the intense affection of someone raised on the Gulf Coast. In fact, I think he treats the setting as lovingly as Robicheaux treats Alafair, the Salvadoran orphan girl he rescues from a downed plane and raises as his own.

The three-legged raccoon, the wet moss hanging ghostlike from dead cypress, the blue crab shelled with a wooden mallet–just a few of the images that add to the patina of New Iberia. Much of the action… show more.

This one is an easy choice for this category. It won the Edgar Award and maintains a high score rating not only on Amazon but also on Goodreads. Goodreads readers are a tough crowd.

Great novels and series have one thing in common: interesting and flawed main characters. Dave Robicheaux fits both classifications plus a few more. Burke is a master at prose and setting, which rounds out a perfect recipe for the kind of book that keeps you up all night turning pages. It did for me.

I’ll discuss James Lee Burke with anyone who wants to, but I’ll not hear a bad word said about the guy.

In fact, I probably won’t really listen to anyone, because I’ll be too busy gushing over what an amazing writer he is. You’d think after so many (twenty? thirty?) Robichaeux books that the luster would wear off. No siree, Dave Robicheaux could well take the award for my favorite fictional character of all time, and James Lee Burke the trophy for one of the great stylists working in any genre.

Black Cherry Blues (an early Robicheaux outing) is another… show more.