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Title: Last Car to Elysian Fields by James Lee Burke ISBN: 0-7540-9506-1 Publisher: Wheeler Publishing Pub. Date: June, 2004 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1

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Average Customer Rating: 4.09 (35 reviews)

Rating: 4
Summary: The best writer in the genre
Comment: James Lee Burke is simply the best writer of the genre in the sense of pure writing. Turn to virtually any page in the book and the most amazing descriptions and metaphors jump out at the reader. It is impossible not to be swept away by the sheer majesty of his language. Nobody evokes the Louisiana bayou like he can. The stories of the hapless hero, Dave Robicheaux, are complex and peopled by the most well mannered evil thugs in the universe.
Robicheaux's friend, Father Jimmy Doyle undergoes a severe beating in New Orleans. Robicheaux, a New Iberia detective investigates with the help of the violent but lovable Clete Purcel. Of course this simple act leads to an increasingly complex web of violence consuming the lives of both the good and the very bad.
Burke's stories never really change. That is the one problem with the books. Each particular work is outstanding but taken as a whole they appear quite repetitive. Names are unbelievably unique- Junior Crudup, Merchie Flannagan, Castille LeJeune, Sugar Bee Quibodeaux, among many others. After living for eight years in New Orleans, I have never come upon a set of names of the characters that populate a Burke novel. Nonetheless, they are so very realistic that the reader will truly feel they know each and every one before the end. Superb- just not unique to the author.

Rating: 4
Summary: Why would anyone live in Louisiana?
Comment: As usual, James Lee Burke's latest Dave Robicheax novel is a loose police procedural set in southern, rural Louisiana, although he ventures into The Big Easy occasionally. As usual, a huge, sprawling web of corruption and racial prejudice is revealed layer by layer as Robicheax investigates an assassination attempt on a priest and the death of three teenage girls in an alcohol-fueled car accident.

Robicheaux has suffered some major, surprising losses since the last book, and much of the story concerns his grieving over these losses - angst familiar to Burke's readers.

I thought the writing was better than usual - more exact poetry in his descriptions of the landscape and characters. The angst, violence and weight of an incredibly complicated plot tend to bog the story down near the end. It also rains a lot!

I love Burke's work, however, for his ability to describe the souls of men and women in trouble. I tend to forgive his excesses of plot and character as he, like any gtreat crime novelist, is willing to tackle the hard, but essential, questions of good and evil.

Rating: 5
Summary: Burke is Brilliant AGAIN
Comment: Last Car to Elysian Fields is another in the Robicheaux series and like Jolie Blon's Bounce before it, is original, relatively complex and ultimately an excellent story that I had a hard time putting down.

Burke can be wordy, not nearly as so as king and others who don't seem to know when to shut up, but not in this book. His usually elegant descriptive prose is there, but not in the annoying extent that it can be found in other of his novels. Still, for me to complain about Burke's prose is pretty hypocritical since I consider the source of that prose one of the literary communities greatest assets...and he's just a mystery writer...yeah right!

Without giving away the plot, Burke has brought us Clete Purcell at his best, an ira hitman looking for absolution and a typical cast of unsavory southern characters, the higher eschelon's of southern society, forwhom Robicheaux has a natural distaste...as do I. Perhaps that's why I like Dave so much, he's a lot like all of us...a bit in the extreme but a lot like us.

Last Car to Elysian Fields is an excellent read, well worth the price. I highly recommend this book to any one who likes a good mystery, with lots of action.

MS