84 books like A Private Cathedral

I’d already bought the book when we decided to drive from our home in Sonoma, California, to visit friends who live in the San Juan Islands off the Washington Coast. I packed the book but also downloaded the Audible version. We started listening as we got on the road. I never opened the book.

It’s just a great story set in the time my parents were in high school and college. It was a world with which I was made familiar by their stories. The main character’s difficult early life resonates with anyone who has listened to the greatest generation talk about what it was like growing up during the Depression.

Yes, the action during the rowing was exciting, but I enjoyed the development of the characters, especially Joe Rantz, and his personal challenges and victories, more than all competition scenes.

I love this novel for its hilarious, unique take on the rage-against-the-patriarchy trope. Elizabeth Zott, the novel’s lead, is a refreshing portrayal of a woman battling the world of mansplaining while doing it in the most stereotypically “female” way—cooking up a storm! As a chemist, her scientific breakdowns of how ingredients chemically react with one another make for many humourous moments on the page. 

This is a book that will have you hooting with laughter and rooting alongside the protagonist till the very end. It mirrored the frustrations I have often felt as a working woman and left me vindicated for the times I, too, have “behaved badly” in male company.

I love realistic heroes who are fallible yet, to their core, have a sense of morals. Throw in the verisimilitude of police procedurals (or military), plus a good mystery, and you’ve got me. Author Michael Connelly has juxtaposed an aging main character, retired LA Detective Harry Bosch, with a younger LA detective, Renée Ballard. In the old-school, patriarchal LAPD, Ballard had quite a challenge conducting the detective work she was passionate about.

I’m impressed with the three-dimensional characters of the two generations, each equally dedicated to getting justice in the cases they’re working on. Connelly's Bosch is far from perfect, and Ballard, the rising next-gen, are two characters I am compelled to follow.

This book, like most of Keith McCafferty’s mystery novels, makes a long, tedious drive, something I look forward to. I’m immediately drawn into the tale, as though I’m looking over the shoulder of Sean Stranahan, the story’s protagonist/private detective/fly-fisherman.

McCafferty makes it possible to be in two places at once, one where I’m in my car with my eyes on the road while the rest of me is solving a murder alongside Sean and a Montana trout stream where we occasionally stop to cast flies to rising trout.

And there are plenty of engaging characters along the way, including Sean’s fiancé Sheriff Martha Ettinger, with whom he eventually brings the killer to justice. I want to keep driving until the case is solved.

The Tin Roof Blowdown shows us New Orleans, and the surrounding areas the days after Katrina raged havoc. Taking into account the lives that have been traumatized as crime and murders increased nine-fold. Detective David Robicheaux of Iberia Parish finds himself in the midst of a murder in an old-time neighborhood, as he tries to figure out if the murder of a local black boy during a robbery was racially motivated or not. The details and stories of this horrific tragedy show the bleakness of the aftermath and that not only did many reach their deaths, but how many who survived died also. No order exists as Robicheaux tries to unravel his latest mystery.

Dave Robicheaux is a New Iberia, Louisiana, sheriff’s detective in a series by James Lee Burke. You don’t want to get on the wrong side of Dave. He is righteous, but flawed. He regularly attends Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, struggles with nightmares of Viet Nam and other unseen demons, but has an acute sense of right and wrong. In Crusader’s Cross, his loyal sidekick, Cletus Prucell says of Dave, "He's got polka dot giraffes running around in his head, but he's the best guy I've ever known.” I’m a Burke fan, and I like everything he writes. In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead, and Purple Cane Road are my personal favorites. In Electric Mist, Dave is drawn into a 40-year-old unsolved murder that he witnessed as a college freshman. In the midst of his investigation, Dave has regular conversations with the ghost of Confederate General John Bell Hood.… show more.

Dave Robicheaux is one of my favorite characters, perhaps because I can relate to him so easily. James Lee Burke is a master of metaphors and he can offer descriptions of the sky like no other. His storytelling is enjoyable and almost philosophical at times.

In this book Burke's firsthand knowledge of the pristine scenery in Northern Montana shines above his usual inside look at the Louisiana bayou country. Robicheauxs's sidekick, Clete Purcel, is a colorful and easily likable character.

Swan Peak wasn’t as exciting as the other Robicheaux novels I’ve read but it was still a great page-turner and good story.

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 takes place in Montana, but Robichaux–and James Lee Burke–return home at the end of the book to the bayou they both love.

I’ve long been a fan of James Lee Burke’s novels. His lyrical and likely heartfelt descriptions of Louisiana’s land, water, and people offset and illuminate the contrasting violence. Burke acknowledges the darkness in humanity and the possibility of redemption.

Into that mix goes Dave Robicheaux, the protagonist, who had his own ups and downs. Robicheaux can read between the lines and keeps a pretty clear eye on the truth. Here’s the opening sentence of this book, Robicheaux narrating in his own way:

“Years ago, in state documents, Vachel Carmouche was always referred to as the electrician, never the executioner.”

The first in the Doucet series and a real nail-biter. A killer has been set free and the couple must team up to catch him. The trail leads them through the bayous of Louisiana and the author does a great job at escalating the tension between them and the environment.