Swan Peak: A Dave Robicheaux Novel

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Product Description

Trouble follows Dave Robicheaux.

James Lee Burke's new novel, Swan Peak, finds Detective Robicheaux far from his New Iberia roots, attempting to relax in the untouched wilderness of rural Montana. He, his wife, and his buddy Clete Purcell have retreated to stay at an old friend's ranch, hoping to spend their days fishing and enjoying their distance from the harsh, gritty landscape of Louisiana post-Katrina.

But the serenity is soon shattered when two college students are found brutally murdered in the hills behind where the Robicheauxs and Purcell are staying. They quickly find themselves involved in a twisted and dangerous mystery involving a wealthy, vicious oil tycoon, his deformed brother and beautiful wife, a sexually deviant minister, an escaped con and former country music star, and a vigilante Texas gunbull out for blood. At the center of the storm is Clete, who cannot shake the feeling that he is being haunted by the ghosts from his past -- namely Sally Dio, the mob boss he'd sabotaged and killed years before.

In this expertly drawn, gripping story, Burke deftly weaves intricate, engaging plotlines and original, compelling characters with his uniquely graceful prose. He transcends genre yet again in the latest thrilling addition to his New York Times bestselling series.

Customer Reviews: Read 58 more reviews...

4 out of 5 stars

"The world respect(s) brute force and brute force alone, no matter what people claim." July 8, 2008
31 out of 38 found this review helpful

(3.5 stars) Following the decimation of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, described in James Lee Burke's last novel, The Tin Roof Blowdown (Dave Robicheaux Mysteries), long-time New Iberia Parish detective Dave Robicheaux has accepted an invitation to recover emotionally on a ranch in western Montana. Robicheaux's long-time buddy Clete Purcell, who accompanies him, has not even started to recover. For Purcell, "the booze he drank and the weed he smoked and the pills he dropped didn't work anymore," and Robicheaux is desperately afraid for his friend.

Within days of their arrival in Montana, the past catches up with them. Clete Purcell runs afoul of two thugs, one of whom once worked for a Nevada gangster who was killed with his entourage when their small plane crashed in the mountains. Purcell has long been suspected of having been involved in the crash. These two thugs now work for wealthy Ridley Wellstone, who is financing a charismatic ministry operated by his young wife. Running parallel to these two plot threads is the story of Jimmy Dale Greenwood, a young man horribly abused by a "gunbull" during a two-year prison sentence. His abuser is now in the same area of Montana, near Missoula and Flathead Lake, as Jimmy Dale. In yet additional plot lines, two young college students are found tortured and murdered in the hills behind the ranch where Robicheaux and Purcell are staying, and a Hollywood producer making a film nearby, and his companion, are shot and burned at a highway rest stop. As these disparate plot threads begin to overlap and explode in violence, Robicheaux and Purcel are up to their eyeballs in the action.

Author James Lee Burke's vaunted ability to create vibrant characters and convey atmosphere through stunning descriptions is on full display here in Big Sky Country, with its fiercely independent residents and its spectacular natural resources. Despite the setting, however, the novel is extremely dark, filled with tormented, if not tortured, characters, all of whom are at the mercy of forces they cannot control. Extreme coincidence guides much of the action here, and though there are a few hints that one or two characters may, in time, set their lives in order, most "want their enemies hosed down with a flamethrower." Long biographies of the many individual characters provide their unfortunate backgrounds and suggest reasons for their violent behavior, though they do not explain the rare glimpses of empathy we see in some characters.

A climactic scene of non-stop action, killing, and near death experiences attempts to show the ultimate connections among the characters and the plot lines, but the author never explains how some of the characters actually extricate themselves from the critical scene. Even Dave Robicheaux, the narrator, admits, "In truth, I cannot tell you with any exactitude what happened [that night]." Somehow, after following so many damaged characters and complex plot lines for four hundred pages, I expected a little more. n Mary Whipple

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3 out of 5 stars

Too heavy on the Southern Gothic musings this time around July 14, 2008
26 out of 33 found this review helpful

I've been a fan of Burke and Robicheaux from the jump, and part of the the draw is the stylistic approach Burke uses to flesh out his characters and settings.

In this novel, the setting is changed to Montana, where Robicheaux and his wife, accompanied by long-time buddy Clete Purcell, find themselves once again embroiled in murder, mayhem, and twisted familial psychopathy, this time revolving around the Wellstone family, a duo of physically and emotionally crippled brothers who are power brokers in the small area around Swan Peak; as well as the wife of one of the brothers, who brings her own checkered past into the equation.

There are other players in the story, leading to a complex brew: the former prison guard with a background of sexual perversity pursuing the escapee who shanked him and left him for dead; the aimlessly wandering woman who captures his heart; various thugs who work for the Wellstones; a religious charlatan; innocent kids trying to follow their faith who end up as victims.

These characters are all on courses that lead to intersection in the rugged Montana scenery, and Burke plots it very well.

Unfortunately, this time around the story bogs down in the endless and repetitive musings about each of the characters' pasts, as well as Robicheaux's history and demons.

In previous books, we've always had this aspect to the stories, and it's been handled deftly and creatively, adding to the depth of the characterizations and atmospheres of the tales. This time, I think Burke's gone overboard, and it really needlessly slows things down. Some of the charcters have overlapping or similar backgrounds, so the musings in these cases become repetitive. Others deal with similar demons -- most obviously Clete and Robicheaux -- so again there's a great deal of repetition.

There's one other aspect that's starting to become very obvious and problematic for the Robicheaux character: his age. In his musings, we read about his background in the Vietnam War, and times he spent with his Dad "in the 1940s" when he was growing up.

Well... I spent those kinds of times with MY Dad in the 1950s, and am also a Vietnam veteran, and my next birthday is my 60th. Which means Robicheaux has to be nearing 70. It's getting pretty hard to believe a character that old can be carrying on the way Robicheax and Purcell do.

Anyway, it was still an enjoyable read, if not quite up to Burke's earlier works, so I give it 3.5 stars.

5 out of 5 stars

Burke at the Peak of his powers July 8, 2008
15 out of 19 found this review helpful

Swan Peak is a "pseudo-sequel" to Black Cherry Blues, the Edgar Award-winning third Dave Robicheaux novel. Like that previous book, it takes place in Montana, where Robicheaux, his wife Molly and longtime friend Clete Purcel go for a fishing trip partly meant to help them escape the devastation of Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina (which was powerfully and sadly evoked in The Tin Roof Blowdown.) The fishing party are the guests of Albert Hollister, one of wealthy oil man Ridley Wellstone's many enemies, with whom Dave and Clete must soon contend after inadvertantly trespassing on his property. After being warned away by two thugs Clete is recognized by one of the men - a former associate of Mob Boss Sally Dio - as the man who engineered Dio's demise in a Montana plane crash (see Black Cherry Blues.) Things get more complicated when two college students are found murdered near Hollister's land; the emnity between Hollister and Wellstone makes the oil tycoon a possible suspect and Dave is recruited by the local authorities to help with the investigation. Meanwhile Clete becomes dangerously infatuated with Wellstone's sister-in-law, a beautiful country singer who's being stalked by a former lover who is himself on the run; he escaped from a Texas prison after nearly killing a brutally violent guard named Troyce Nix. When Nix comes to Montana in pursuit, Robicheaux first sees him at a revival meeting put on by the shady Rev. Sonny Click (who may have Wellstone connections) and immediately pegs him as a menace despite being unaware of the ex-military man's disgraceful involvement at Abu Graib. All of this might sound confusing here, but Burke combines his intertwining storylines so smoothly that it's easy to appreciate his masterfully graceful prose, as well as his poetic eye for detail in both landscape and character. Nobody writes crime novels like James Lee Burke, and Swan Peak shows he is at the peak of his considerable powers.
Also recommended: A Stranger Lies There - winner of the Malice Domestic Award for best first mystery, it features a vividly rendered desert backdrop that should please fans of James Lee Burke's colorful Montana and Louisiana settings.

5 out of 5 stars

"He had already mortgaged too many tomorrows to get through the present day." July 15, 2008
10 out of 12 found this review helpful

James Lee Burke continues to be one of the treasures in current fiction. No one is better at evoking a sense of "being there" as JLB. Whether describing a bucolic scene in the Bitterroot Mountains or a depraved honky tonk in New Orleans, Burke has the reader feeling like he/she is really there. Burke paints word pictures that are so effective they can almost become "visually" stunning to the imaginative reader. Add that to his terrific ability to develop and flesh out characters and his intricately detailed plot lines and you have the makings of a literary lion.

Burke writes most often of the battle between good and evil...and often finds many of his characters are somewhere between the two extremes. Redemption is a common factor in his work as some characters do find redemption while others, notably Dave and Clete, are in constant search of it. Most of his "bad" characters have some goodness lurking in thier souls and many of his "good" characters fight internal battles against their own darkness. Certinly a common theme is the constant battle Dave and Clete fight against their own personal demons...Clete most often with self medication and booze and Dave with his often unsuccessful repression of his violent urges and continuing battle as a reformed alcoholic.

In "Swan Peak", Dave and Clete have gone to rural Montana for some well deserved R&R in hopes of rekindling their inner spirits after the devastation wrought by Katrina and Rita and the events in "The Big Tin Blowdown". But evil knows no geographical boundaries and our protagonists are soon deep in a number of seemingly muddling plot threads including a wealthy and arrogant family who are up to no good, a former country singer who has married one of the weatlhy Wellstone brothers but pines for her lost love and father of her child, a passle of mountain country thugs, a former prison guard hunting an escaped prisoner who almost killed him, a charlatan preacher, murdered college coeds, an inquisitive FBI operative, and perhaps a ghost out of Clete's past who may or may not have been killed in a plane crash Clete orchestrated. Whew!! Believe it or not, all these threads do ultimately intersect and unwind satisfactorily and all, in one way or another, serve as testimony to the goodness and evil in most of us.

While I missed the New Orleans and southern Lousiana settings for the Robicheaux novels, "Swan Peak" proves that the characters can fight their battles for good vs. evil in any local while battling their own inner demons that they can never escape. This novel gives more emphasis than normal to Clete and his personal battles yet, the constant, as always, is the way the "Bobbsey Twins Forever" are always there for each other physically as well as psychologically and emotionally. I know of no more complex friendship in crime fiction than that of Dave Robicheaux and Clete Purcel. This is a book and a series I continue to recommend unequivocally.

5 out of 5 stars

Evil, Dark and Masterful... July 29, 2008
10 out of 10 found this review helpful

Swan Peak by James Lee Burke is the 16th book in his Dave Robicheaux series, and this novel is dark, evil and wonderfully written.

Detective Dave Robicheaux hails from New Iberia, Louisiana. He's spending the summer in Montana with his wife Molly, and best friend Clete Purcell. Robicheaux plans on spending his days fishing and enjoying the Bitterroots. Events conspire against him, and as usual with Dave and Clete, trouble seems to follow them where ever they go.
Two college co-eds are brutally murdered, and one is found near where Robicheaux is staying. Two tourists are also found murdered at a rest stop. Robicheaux feels that the Wellstone brothers, Ridley and Leslie are somehow behind the evil things happening in this small town of Missoula. The Wellstones made their money in Texas, and are now operating a local ministry. Leslie Wellstone, a monster of a man with burn scars all over his face, is married to the pretty country singer, Jamie Sue Stapleton. At the same time, Jamie Sue's true love, Jimmy Dale Greenwood, escapes from a Texas jail after being brutalized by a jail gunbull, Troyce Nix. Nix knows that Greenwod will try to find Jamie Sue and follows Greenwood to Montana. And as if this isn't enough darkness going on, Purcell and Robicheaux are both dealing with demons caused by their childhoods, their Viet Nam experiences and in Robicheaux's case, his battle to stay sober. How these people all converge in this small town and the end results are as surprising as they are masterful.

In terms of writing, James Lee Burke it not just a mystery writer, but an author who writes mysteries. His books are written in a style that can be found in good literature. In fact, in addition to two different mystery series, Burke is the author of eight novels. When Clete became frustrated with the happenings in Missoula, "He closed his cell phone and flipped it over his shoulder onto the bed. If ever reincarnated, he vowed, he would live in a stone hut on top of a mountain in Tibet, thousands of miles away from people whose lives were modeled on the lyrics of country-and-western songs."

James Lee Burke has been publishing a new Robicheaux every July, and it's one of the things I most look forward to during the summer.

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