Black Cherry Blues

September 1, 1989
Burke pits a land-hungry oil company against a Blackfeet Indian reservation in a stunning novel that takes detective fiction into new imaginative realms. His Cajun sleuth, Dave Robicheaux, an ex-New Orleans cop featured in two previous novels, attends Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, has recurrent nightmares about his murdered wife, and cares for an adopted El Salvadoran refugee girl. When two American Indian activists disappear, Robicheaux's dogged investigation not only sets him on a collision course with Mafia thugs and oil interests, but also leads him into a romance with Darlene American Horse, his ex-partner's girlfriend. All the main characters in this darkly beautiful, lyric saga carry heavy emotional baggage, and Robicheaux's sleuthing is a simultaneous exorcism of demons of grief, loss, fear, rage, vengeance. Burke's fictional terrain--stretching from the Louisiana bayous to Montana's red cliffs and pine-dotted hills--is uniquely his own, yet also a microcosm of a multi-ethnic America. He writes from the heart and the gut. 35,000 first printing; major ad/promo.

Dave Robicheaux is a former police officer from New Orleans. He is also a Vietnam veteran and recovering alcoholic whose wife has been brutally slain. This man already has lots of problems before he's arrested for the murder of a local gangster. Caring for a little girl is all that keeps him sane. She lovingly calls him "Daaaave," using the Cajun accent of the hired help. Mark Hammer reads Robicheaux with a thick, cloudy voice which conveys Southern Louisiana anger and alcoholism. Other characters are not read as well. Though Robicheaux narrates, voice distinction is sometimes a problem. Despite this and some variation in voice levels from tape to tape, the richness of the story captures the listener. D.W.K. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine