Crusader's Cross, A Dave Robicheaux Novel

James Burke

Published By: Simon & Schuster

Book Category: Fiction, Mystery & Detective

Buy From Amazon

Reviewed by Jackie Baumgarten

Crusader's Cross is Dave Robicheaux at his best, and he hasn't lost his sharp edge or gritty perspective--but age and life experience seem to have softened his character.

Dave Robicheaux is called to the deathbed of a life-long racist who Dave has known since high school. Troy Bordelon has some information to pass on about the disappearance of Ida Durbin, a black woman who Dave's brother was briefly involved with some 40 years earlier.

This disclosure opens long-closed wounds as Dave sets out to discover the truth about what happened to Ida Durbin. At the same time a one-paragraph addendum to a wire service article about the death of a local woman catches his attention. Over thirty women in the Baton Rouge area had been murdered, all unsolved, in the last ten years.

We are instantly tossed into the fragrant, untamed landscape of New Iberia, its wild, self-propagating greenery, the corrupt self-governing government, a shifting moral economy, past wrongs influencing present choices and behind it all, greed born of desire.

All the characters and ghosts of past Robicheaux novels make an appearance in Crusader's Cross but the author also introduces a sprinkling of new faces, one who has particular significance in Robicheaux's life!

I've never been to Louisiana, but I will be sorely disappointed when I do, if it isn't exactly like a James Lee Burke novel!

Armchair Interviews says: James Lee Burke does it again, and again and again. What a great writer. If you don't know him, pick up this book and start to love his writing.