Alifair is All Grown Up and Dave is Obsessed with His Own Mortality

The Glass Rainbow: A Dave Robicheaux Novel by James Lee Burke
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Usually, Burke's books are pretty exciting and involved but this one was more disturbing in a strange way. The crimes and the perpetrators are always upsetting--especially since I love the time we spend in New Iberia and it just doesn't seem possible these things could be true, even at a lesser intensity than the fictional town and its people. But in this book, Robicheaux is really obsessed with his own mortality, even to the point of hallucinating the arrival of a Showboat on the Teche coming to take him to the next plane. Not sure if Burke feels this way or if he has had a health issue but considering I'm of the same vintage or pretty close, and do not feel the weight of impending death, it was distracting from the main story.

Also, though I am proud of my daughter just as Burke should be proud of his lawyer/novelist daughter in real life, his constant praise of her literary prowess was rather heavy handed. Especially since I've read her first trilogy ( Kinkaid ) and found it less than gripping or stimulating. I hope her association with the more experienced Mary Higgins Clark will help her improve her skills. Until the last couple of his books, I didn't realize how much of his own life is included in his writing.

Basically, the added biographical information in this book tended to make it and the previous one less satisfying than his earlier entries in the saga of Dave Robicheaux, his friend, Clete Purcell and New Iberia.

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