Review: The New Iberia Blues

The New Iberia Blues by James Lee Burke
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The New Iberia Blues by James Lee Burke
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Hard to believe I won this book in 2019 but I read the Robicheaux books in order and have finally caught up. I'm afraid I'm a biased reader for I love the New Iberia-Lafayette area of Louisiana and spend at least two weeks there every winter. As a result part of my enjoyment in the books is that I know where things are and when Dave and Clete head through the tunnel of oaks between New Iberia and St Martinsville I'm right there. I've explored all the way to Morgan City been along the Coast to Cameron etc--you get the picture. Still, I've come to love the characters as well and know how old they are getting--at some point Clete isn't going to recover from his wounds and Dave isn't going to be able to knock the shit out of some scumbag in a righteous attack. But, I like them , keep coming back for more. This time a series of seemingly unrelated murders with religious overtones has the gang and the reader at loose ends. Two new younger cops are part of the story--Bailey Ribbons, whose name I do NOT love, gives the aging Dave a chance to feel foolish in love and Sean McClain, who is wet behind the ears but eager to learn. There are the usual cast of abused and misused creatures who hang to life by their finger tips--doing whatever needs doing to survive. Also, the shadowy creatures who break the law and some who take lives without remorse. I keep telling myself there aren't really those people in the lovely Louisiana I enjoy--but I think some are probably real. Certainly the broke, poor and down and out are real and visible even to a visitor. And JLB in his prose paints the scenes, the people and the crimes with such clarity and realism you just have to keep turning the pages until you've experienced it all and then close the book and sit and think about the meaning of it all. The stories, the place, the people just stay with you as you imagine yourself sitting on the banks of the Teche in City Park across from Dave's office watching the Muscovey and Mallards swimming around.

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