Sunset Limited

Starred review from June 1, 1998
After stepping into stand-alone territory with Cimmaron Rose (1997), Burke choreographs a masterful return to the lush and brooding world of volatile New Iberia Sheriff's Deputy Dave Robicheaux (Cadillac Jukebox, 1996). This tale's strength lies in breathtaking, moody descriptive passages and incisive vignettes that set time, place and character. Burke's major themes, that the past is key to the present and that money buys power, pervade this mystery. The narrative, with more twists and bounces than a fish fighting a hook, rises from the violent, unsolved murder 40 years ago of union organizer Jack Flynn. The story encompasses at least eight disparate but interlocking subplots: the crooked money behind a movie directed by Flynn's son Cisco; the hold that ex-con Swede Boxleiter has on Cisco's photojournalist sister, Megan; Willie "Cool Breeze" Broussard's theft of a mob warehouse; his wife Ida's suicide 20 years ago; the shooting of two white brothers who raped a black woman; alcoholic Lisa Terrebonne's haunted childhood; her wealthy, arrogant father's ties to Harpo Scruggs, a vicious murderer; the post-Civil War killing by freed slaves of a Terrebonne servant. Hired assassins, snitches, lawmen and FBI agents weave through the novel. Dave and his partner Detective Helen Soileau find the connections, but Dave knows that in the ongoing class war, the worst criminals wield too much influence to pay for their crimes. In rich, dense prose, Burke conjures up bizarre, believable characters who inhabit vivid, spellbinding scenes in a multifaceted, engrossing plot. $300,000 ad/promo; author tour.

Detective Dave Robicheaux returns in Burke's latest mystery set in New Iberia, Louisiana. Mark Hammer's slow drawl soothes the listener despite the tension of an unsolved murder by crucifixion of a labor leader forty years ago. Robicheaux's anguish over a still raging class war and the ever present racial inequity is heard clearly in Hammer's simmering voice. Yet, his descriptions of the sultry setting and the people Robicheaux cares for are tranquil. Hammer nicely portrays Robicheaux's former New Orleans Police Department partner, the corrupted and irascible Clete Purcel. The narrator slips softly into cold-blooded suspense in the sultry New South. R.N. (c) AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine