REVIEW James Lee Burke - Burning Angel Orion 1995
If my count is correct "Burning Angel" is James Lee Burke's eighth Robicheaux mystery and for anybody who's never tried them as good a place to start as any. Robicheaux fans will know the score by now but for those who don't this is the basic Robicheaux history. Dave Robicheaux, Vietnam vet, present day police officer. Inhabits and generally suffers in the backwaters of Louisiana. Dave fights both the local and imported criminal populations and spends some of his time on the right and some on the wrong, side of the law (as with most series detectives, relations with the top brass are strained). Robicheaux is a damaged character (past tragedies haunt him), uncertain and as many others in this genre, disoriented The crimes Robicheaux is sent out to solve are designed to test his sense of self. Victims are usually close to him, crime usually threatens literally at home.
"Burning Angel" follows the pattern. An old acquaintance of Dave's one Sonny Marsallas turns up in New Iberia acting cryptically and entrusting a notebook to Dave's safe-keeping. Marsallas has a history: Vietnam and then various mercenary jobs in Central America where Dave soon realises he has made some well connected enemies. The area becomes a magnet for government agents, land speculators and mobsters with Robicheaux in possession of the much wanted notebook. He soon finds his life on the line again. Aided by fellow officer Helen Soileau and less official Clete Purcel Private Investigator, Robicheaux pursues some sort of truth, annoying everyone from the mob to the local police department. In the process, the moral landscape of present day Louisiana complete with casual and institutional racism, guilt and pride in the past are well turned over.
As with the latest Robicheaux adventures the obsession is very much with the past, both recent US adventures in Asia and Central America and the lost South of the civil war. James Lee Burke sees the past everywhere and never underestimates its effects on the present. If I had an argument with this book it would be that there is just too much plot, too many angles, more than we need . But it's still a fine read. (R.L.)