Pegasus Descending: A Dave Robicheaux Novel (Dave Robicheaux Mysteries)

Last summer, I discovered James Lee Burke and ended up reading all 14 Dave Robicheaux mysteries in quick succession. Thank goodness Burke just came out with Pegasus Descending as it's been a long 8 months without a fix.

Dave Robicheaux is still a detective, working for the Iberia Sheriff's Department. The year is 2005 and three unsolved deaths are on Robicheaux's plate. First, a young co-ed getting ready for college is found with a gunshot wound to her head. It looks like a suicide, and the detective can't figure out why this apparently happy, well-adjusted girl would have taken too many drugs, had sex with more than a few men and then shot herself. The skeletal remains of a homeless man (nicknamed Crustacean Man) are found in a drainage ditch and seem to have sat there for 12 months. His injuries are not consistent with a hit and run. And a college student, Tony Lujan, is killed with a shotgun. Robicheaux suspects that all three deaths are related, but can't find the pieces that will tie this puzzle together. He keeps coming back to the same names: Bellerophon Lujan and Whitey Bruxal, two men who have mob ties and are in the casino business. Unfortunately, the politically ambitious DA, Lonnie Marceaux, wants to pin the crimes on a small-tine black drug dealer, Monarch Little. How Pegasus Descending plays out is riveting and I was completely surprised at the end.

Many of Burke's characters that we have grown to know and love are back. Cletus Purcell is always there for Robicheaux and is always good for a few belly laughs. Robicheaux seems a little more grounded with his new wife, the former nun Molly Boyle. The women in Robicheaux's past tended to be victim-types. So it's refreshing for Robicheaux to have two strong women in his corner, wife Molly and Sheriff Helen Soileau. There is a new female FBI agent in town who provides some comic relief. Betsy Mossbacher gets the nickname Calamity Jane when she backs into a sheriff's cruiser her first day in town. Robicheaux can't decide whether Homeland Security has drained the FBI of their "first team" or maybe she's being punished. But despite the humor, there is always an underlying blackness in Burke's books whether it is caused by Robicheaux's battle with alcoholism, lost opportunities, senseless deaths, and with Pegasus Descending, the looming specter of Hurricane Katrina.

Many writers of mystery series run out of energy, ideas, characters, etc. once they've been at it for awhile. Luckily for his readers, Burke is still at the top of his game in Pegasus Descending.

It just wouldn't be July or August without a Burke crafted Dave Robicheaux novel. In Pegasus Descending Burke treats us once again with a gritty, humid, and atmospheric thriller that is sure to satisfy all of Burkes loyal readers. I've said this before but I'll say it again, James Lee Burke is one of the finest descriptive writers alive today. He can describe a humid summer day in the pages of his book and you'll have to wipe your brow because of the sweat gathering there. The scenes and smells he describes will fill your senses. That and his cast of characters, including former Marine Clete Purcell makes each new book like a visit home.

Dave Robicheaux is a survivor of too much of a good thing. Long off the bottle he is still paying for his affair with alcohol and as another reviewer said, the past is never far away. Trish Klein, a young scam artist, turns out to be the daughter of Robicheaux's best friend and fellow Nam vet Dallas Klein. Robicheaux witnessed Dallas' execution style murder years before but was too blasted to intervene. Fast forward to now and young Trish has disappeared after ripping off a local mobster.

Burke has a love affair with NOLA. It will be interesting to see if he eventually incorporates Katrina into a future novel.

Pegasus is a must read for all Burke fans.

The Robicheaux franchise is the class act in contemporary mystery fiction. But _Pegasus Descending_ is not a stellar addition to the series. It's an enjoyable read if you regard Dave and his friends as family, but I suspect that a reader starting here would wonder what the fuss was all about.

The fact that everybody who knows Dave talks about his obsession with getting the rich does not excuse Burke's repetitious plots. I'm pleased that he did a few new riffs on the theme, adding complexity in an unexpected place, but on the whole, I found myself muttering "Uh-uh," every time the chorus (Helen Soileau, Clete Purcell, a small backup band) complains about Dave's fixation.

What's new here? A redeemed bad guy. Monarch is a refreshing step out of Burke's grotesques. Some firming up of Helen Soileau into a person rather than a type. A strong sense that Clete's days are numbered. On the down side, a "big finish" that was a bit too Saturday morning serial for my taste.

The death of a young woman hovers over the action like a storm passing, and the novel brings that primary key to a satisfying conclusion. Too much is familiar music, but the familiar is, after all, why we come back.<

Non-fans can give this one a skip. For the rest of us, yes, Burke does a great job of keeping Dave's advancing age realistic. Folks have started calling him "Pop," and appropriately. And anyone who thinks a man his age hasn't the stamina for his violence needs to get out more.

Burke's New Iberia is a place we will miss when he retires. The novels may all be fiddle tunes, but this man can fiddle to beat the devil.

Pegasus Descending is a mess. But the latest entry in the Dave Robicheaux series has redeeming qualities. Let's start with those.

No one knows his turf better than Burke. His evocations of Louisiana - particularly the lovely description of a glorious morning that starts Chapter 12 - can be delightful. And Burke can conjure up fascinating and sympathetic characters, though he relies a little too frequently on the veteran haunted by the demons of Vietnam. (This book has at least three.)

The real problems start with the plot. Pegasus Descending gets ensnared in an excess of storylines, involving among other things Neo-Nazi fraternity boys, a sleazy televangelist, a sexy grifter, closeted gays, a ruthlessly ambitious prosecutor, the embittered wife of a gangster and not one but three homicide investigations (to start with).

You begin to wonder how Burke is going to wrap things up satisfactorily, and the sad truth is, he doesn't. Some of the characters basically disappear, and some plotlines just kind of fade away; they deserve better. An editor should have ordered Burke to sort things out more clearly or perhaps to save some characters and story lines for another book (or two). As it is, the plot seems primarily designed to steer Dave Robicheaux or his buddy, Clete Purcel, into confrontations that serve no purpose other than allowing them to deliver sermons to lost souls or sadistic beatings to villains. Aren't these guys - both of whom must be in their 60s -- a little old to be beating people up in bars?

In the end, it is Burke's moralizing that proves most troubling. He wants to be a soft-hearted liberal, extolling the virtues of nonviolence, seeing the potential for good in almost everyone, calling for compassion toward anyone or anything in need -- from disabled children to (so help me God) a crippled raccoon. But Burke revels in the cathartic power of violence - and knows we do too. His Dave Robicheaux is a liberal vigilante like Billy Jack or (less precisely) the FBI agents in the movie Mississippi Burning. Burke wants to have it both ways and to cover his tracks with mumbo-jumbo about decent men struggling against the darkness in their souls.

Burke tries to make Dave Robicheaux a moral exemplar like Atticus Finch, but in the end he's only created a Dirty Harry Callahan with a guilt complex. The truth is, Burke obviously believes that purifying violence is the answer to evil. He just doesn't quite want to admit it.

Burke has reached perfection in his Robicheaux series with this book. It has every element needed to create a solid story. This time, Burke takes his beautiful writing and wraps it around a storyline that not only vividly flows, but contemplatively pulls together in the end. The difference between this book and the average suspense novel is Burke's lyrical writing and thrilling, quirky storylines and characters. I felt like breaking into song after I finished it, it's that good. Bravo, Burke!

Burke is one of my favourite living writers. His plots are complex, characters interesting, and settings vivid. But, this book does not compare with any of his others. The plot is rushed and characters are left flat and undeveloped. Poor Molly, Dave's latest wife, is given only peripheral attention and treated with the same brush Burke has painted most of Dave's other partners. The conclusion of the book is almost as convenient as waking up only to discover it was only a dream. It has usually been a treat to go into summer with a Burke book to read, but this was a shocker. Even the editing of this book was horrible. Simple spelling errors creeping into many chapters, plots not fleshed out and characters left on the page without significant purpose.

I'm wondering what's going on with Burke and his publisher that this book would be put on the shelves in this state. The publisher should be taking better care of such a significant author.

This was my first Burke book, and he was highly recommended. Unfortunately, I ended up struggling to force myself to even finish it. Perhaps this was just not his best work, but as I read, I found myself alternating between boredom, revulsion, and (mostly) total apathy. The book seemed ridiculously long to me, with no real point. Burke meanders along, babbling away on a story line... and then abruptly just wanders off to a different plotline. I would not have minded, but there was never any attempt to tie the multiple stories together in ANY way, and so characters and stories seem to just wander in and out of the pages at random. I certainly enjoyed Burke's vivid description of Louisiana life, and he has a deft way with words that often evokes amazing images in ther reader's mind. But the bottom line (to me) still has to be the story and the characters, and in this book, I was bored by all the partial stories, and hated most of the characters. I felt like a good editor could have helped this book a lot by paring some of the extraneous stories and characters, and by tightening up the remainder of the book so that it actually moved along at something better than the plodding pace that it has now. And finally, when I had resigned myself to slogging through to the end, suddenly the ending changed from the lazy, aimless feel of the rest of the book to something seemingly stolen from a "Lethal Weapon" sequel! Further evidence that Burke had no idea what he wanted the book to be, he was just ready to be done with it... but nowhere near as ready as I was. Quite a disappointing read.

Of the fifteen "Dave Robicheaux" novels that James Lee Burke has written, his newest one, Pegasus Descending, is definitely the most complex. Most of his books have a couple of plotlines for the characters to follow that are resolved at the end. Pegasus Descending has about seven plotlines that intertwine, and I found myself hard pressed to keep all of the characters straight in my mind and how their roles kept changing. That doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the novel. I did, but it certainly required a lot of work on my part.

The story basically revolves around Robicheaux finally getting retribution for the death of his old friend, Dallas Klein, who was killed many years before during a bank robbery. Robicheaux tried to take out the bad guys during the hold-up, but was drunk at the time and couldn't aim properly. He always blamed himself for Klein's death. Now, Klein's daughter, Trish, is in New Iberia, pulling scams at the local casinos that are now owned by the man who ordered her father's death. Robicheaux has to figure out what to do with her, but that soon becomes a mute point when she inadvertently hooks up with his best friend, Clete Purcel. Trish and Purcel hit it off as she continues to figure up ways to draw out the man who killed her dad. Robicheaux then has his attention divided when the body of a murdered homeless man is discovered along a drainage ditch and a young girl dies from an apparent suicide. Add to that a lot of racial tension between the town's main gangbanger and the son of the man whom Trish Klein is after. This time around, Robicheaux is going to have his hands full trying to do his job, while keeping his chief happy, the FBI happy, the local D.A. happy, and just about anyone else that you can think of. The only problem is that Robicheaux wants some serious payback from the men who murdered his friend so long ago and he doesn't care whom he has to take out in order to get it.

I've been a big fan of the "Robicheaux" novels since 1993, and I have yet to read a bad one, which is saying a lot for the author. All the books are magnificently written. Mr. Burke has a unique style of writing that's not only elegant but also poetic. The way he describes old Louisiana and New Orleans touches the heart of the reader with its beauty and sense of nostalgia. The many characters that he creates in his books are true Southerners in their politeness, hospitality, and views of the world. Mr. Burke also has a clear eye for depicting the evil and wickedness that men are prone to. Even the hero of the series, Dave Robicheaux, is filled with inner demons that often lead him to forms of extreme violence in a futile effort to squelch them. He has no problem whatsoever with crushing those who would hurt the innocent, even if it means stepping outside the law to do it. Always filled with action, deep character studies, and the drama of a morality play, the "Robicheaux" series is one of the best on the market with Pegasus Descending carrying on in the grand tradition. Highly recommended!

James Lee Burke has had a long and splendid career as a writer. Many writers with his body of work and credentials would be slowing down. Not Burke.

Jim Burke keeps getting better. Readers of the last book in this series, CRUSADER's CROSS will recall that in that book Dave Robicheaux hooked up with a nun. In this book they are married and she serves as a sort of moral compass for a man who really needs one.

There are crimes to investigate. A suicide, or was it murder? A death by hit and run driver, or was it murder? And that vintage Burke signature crime from the past, bubbling up like swamp gas, the execution style slaying of Dave's pal years ago in Miami. Dave saw the killing but he was too drunk to do anything.

Now sober, Dave is trying to keep his sidekick Clete from drinking himself to death. While Clete seems destined for mayhem it is actually Dave who is wrestling with demons. He is so filled with rage he nearly beats a man to death. Of course, that man tried to poison Dave's pet raccoon so most animal lovers would concur that killing that creep would be justifiable homicide.

Burke conjures up atmospheres as dark as a hurricane blowing in. The weather is a metaphor for Dave's anger. Dave and Clete are classically flawed heroes. Think Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.

Reading James Lee Burke is as comfortable as that favorite sweater or that pair of slippers you can't throw away. Each new book is such a pleasure. I hope he keeps writing for many more years to come.

I had not read any of James Lee Burke's work before I went into the bookstore today. This book was on the front table by the door, looked interesting, so I sat down to browse it. Several hours later I had finished the book. Then I bought it and took it home. Yes, this book is THAT good.

Burke's main character Dave Robicheaux, is a detective who has exited to the slow lane in New Iberia, La. After stints in big city police departments where he lost himself, he finds himself married to a former nun, and reliving one of the memories that has tortured him since the early 1970's. In a plot involving organized crime, casinos, the daughter of a friend he feels he should have saved, his best friend and three or four local murders, Robicheaux struggles to solve a couple of murder cases and deal with the existensial dilemas of his life.

This novel has so many twists the reader finds himself meeting himself in the curve. Every time I thought I knew where this book was going I was wrong. When it unwinds at the end, it is much like life-some things bring you satisfaction and some leave you scratching your head going why. Burke's writing style is very character driven. Looking back it seems that much of the action is revealed as character development more than narrative.

Of all the myster/thriller/detective books I've read lately this is the first one that was completely satisfying as a reader. My suggestion-add this one to the shopping cart now and block out an afternoon or weekend to read it. An absolute must read