Country: USA
Genre: Hardboiled/Thriller
Pages: 275
I have been hearing about James Lee Burke for month now. "Ben, if you like Dennis Lehane so much, try James Lee Burke. You're going to thank me." Now I did and I can understand what the fuss is all about. The man can write a book and a half. He can find poetry in the cracks of a worn-down back alley. I decided to start my James Lee Burke experience with the first Dave Robicheaux novel. Robicheaux is the trademark character he used in eighteen novels, soon to be nineteen now with his next book CREOLE BELLE coming out in 2012. So I started with the beginning, THE NEON RAIN, who's often hailed as one of the best Robicheaux novels, a gem sticking out in a series that lasted for way too long. It's a wild read. While Burke handles the pen with maestria, I found he has something issues to keep his creativity in check. THE NEON RAIN is a very good book, but if it would be a house, you would hear the ceiling crack under the weight of Burke's ambition.
Dave Robicheaux is a New Orleans cop and a pretty damn good one. He raised to the rank of lieutenant and lives to keep the streets of his beloved city clean and safe. But Dave has a heavy past to carry around on his shoulders. He's a Viet-Nam veteran who has seen horrors overseas and he's struggling with an addiction to alcohol that cost him his first wedding. When his cop sense starts tingling about the body of a young girl found in the Bayou, he starts poking around and ask questions. But nobody wants to answer him. Even the cops from the counties where she was found are trying to stall the investigation (funnily enough, that's how he ends up meeting Annie, his new girlfriend) That's enough for the pig-headed veteran to start digging. And holy cow, doesn't he ever hates what he finds. She was just the tip of the iceberg to something so much more complex.
The main attraction of THE NEON RAIN was Dave Robicheaux himself and the great minutiae that James Lee Burke takes to describe him. He is a conflicted man, at war with himself and with what he can do when he's on a bad stretch. But he's also a dedicated cop who has nothing but love for New Orleans and who would like a little peace of mind, sometimes. He's very endearing and irritating at the same time, because he keeps fighting off the shadows in himself. He's the main course for sure, but THE NEON RAIN is so over the top sometimes, that his glowing presence can be cluttered by an overwhelming amount of information. The NEON RAIN show is clearly about Dave, but there are so many characters and the plot gets so needlessly complicated he just surfs it for a few chapters. And a presence-less character who surfs an over-the-top plot just makes for a stupid story. DIE HARD is nothing without John McClain.
Burke has a hard time to keep it under control. The cast is too large for what the novel can really handle and despite having some passages that make you drop to one knee *, you will scramble to understand what the fuck's going on and why did this character just died and who he really was. I've read a little bit on the rest of the Dave Robicheaux series. There are better, darker novels than THE NEON RAIN and the strength of James Lee Burke's pen would make it easy for me to continue. It's written in a very alluring way, without ever losing itself in language exploration. Just straight up beautiful prose. THE NEON RAIN was a wild rollercoaster ride, but it wasn't without its upsides. Dave Robicheaux is quite the guy and I'm looking forward to reading more of his crazy life in New Orleans. Maybe with less people involved next time.
* I wanted to quote some, but I didn't make the pages. I looked them up like an idiot for thirty minutes today, but I could find none. Like they were playing hide and seek with me.
