After finding himself caught up in one of Louisiana’s oldest and bloodiest family rivalries, Detective Dave Robicheaux must battle the most terrifying adversary he has ever encountered: a time-traveling superhuman assassin. The Shondell and Balangie families are longtime enemies in the New Iberia criminal underworld and show each other no mercy. Yet their youngest heirs, Johnny Shondell and … Shondell and Isolde Balangie, rock and roll-musician teenagers with magical voices, have fallen in love and run away after Isolde was given as a sex slave to Johnny’s uncle.
As he seeks to uncover why, Detective Dave Robicheaux gets too close to both Isolde’s mother and the mistress of her father, a venomous New Orleans mafioso whose jealousy has no bounds. In retribution, he hires a mysterious assassin to go after Robicheaux and his longtime partner, Clete Purcel. This hitman is unlike any the “Bobbsey Twins from Homicide” have ever faced. He has the ability to induce horrifying hallucinations and travels on a menacing ghost ship that materializes without warning. In order to defeat him and rescue Johnny and Isolde, Robicheaux will have to overcome the demons that have tormented him throughout his adult life–alcoholism, specters from combat in Vietnam, and painful memories of women to whom he opened his heart only to see killed.
A Private Cathedral, James Lee Burke’s fortieth book, is his most powerful tale, one that will captivate readers–mixing crime, romance, mythology, horror, and science fiction to produce a thrilling story about the all-consuming, all-conquering power of love.
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This is another great story from the master of crime fiction. Dave and Clete confront powerful and evil folks and one who just might not be real in a struggle of good vs evil that will quickly drag you into a very dark world. As always with this iconic series, the characters are wonderfully rendered, the dialog spot on, and the writing poetic. Loved it.
DP Lyle, award-winning author, lecturer, story consultant
Hard-boiled Crime and Paranormal Make for an Uneasy Mix
The first thing I noticed about A Private Cathedral is the author’s writing style. It’s eloquent, evocative, and vividly descriptive. Author Burke doesn’t write about a sunset, but about strips of orange fire in the clouds. And while the final metaphors and similes may change—this review is based on a pre-release version of the novel—Burke’s writing style won’t, and that’s a definite plus. I appreciated the mental images and feelings his expressive prose engendered. I enjoy this style, however, as ‘seasoning’ to the text and for my taste, Burke over-seasoned this book. Amid action, he often paused to paint a word picture of the setting, or of a flashback from the protagonist’s past as a child or in Vietnam, or of a historical or mythological reference. I would have preferred that Burke depict the setting and once done, let the action flow. Additionally, he frequently rendered his flowery prose in quite lengthy sentences. One I noticed was 76 words long with seven conjunctions (and) to tie it all together. Probably as a result of these stylistic decisions, I found the story a bit slow, somewhat repetitive, and unfocused in places.
The protagonist of the story, Dave Robicheaux, and his partner and friend, Clete Purcel, are both deeply flawed characters. The former has been scarred by his childhood, the deaths of two wives, his experiences in Vietnam, his drug and alcohol dependency, his attraction to destructive relationships, and his dealings with the unsavory side of humanity on the job as a police detective. Purcel’s background has been no less difficult. And though the books are said to be standalone, that’s a lot of emotional baggage to try to understand when you start with book number 23 in the series. Easing into these characters would be preferable.
There is a hard realism to the story, one of sexual slavery, with Robicheaux and Purcel depicted in the same light. They are a mix of southern manners and violence. They’ll address you with your first name, proceeded by Mr. or Miss. Or they’ll hurl profanity and racial slurs at you before they beat you to a pulp. But when Robicheaux and Purcel start believing in the paranormal—ghosts ships piloted by time-traveling assassins—I found the plotlines nearly impossible to reconcile. Where had our hard-bitten, cynical heroes gone? Had our protagonists’ chemical dependency left them unable to distinguish reality from make-believe? And if that’s true, what else have they fantasized? Or is the paranormal real (whatever that means) and the book is a fantasy rather than a thriller? I suppose the author might have wanted the reader to ponder those questions, but for a book advertised as a blend of romance, mythology, horror, and science fiction, they made the first three themes vanish in confusion while the promise of science-fiction was left unfulfilled. Unfortunately, that confusion lasts through the finale, when I couldn’t guess who or what our heroes faced or who or what might come to their aid. And it’s tough to feel much tension when that’s the case.
Thanks to Netgalley, the author (James Lee Burke), and the publisher (Simon and Shuster) for providing a copy of the book. I opted to write this candid review.
A Private Cathedral by James Lee Burk brings the reader to the edge of truth and imaginations down in south Louisana. Each time I read a new Dave Robicheaux Novel I think, “That is the best one yet!” I always look forward to reading these books. Is it because Dave is an honest but troubled soul, or because each novel has some new scene which could have come from the headlines of a Louisiana newspaper. I lived in Eunice and Thibodeaux/Thibodaux for years as a child and the unexplainable seemed to be normal.
In A Private Cathedral, Dave and Clete are concerned about Isolde Balangie, a young teenager who approached Dave to tell him she was being delivered to her family’s rival, Mark Shondell as if she were chattel. They know from the four-hundred-year-old hatred between the Balangie’s and Shondell’s that Isolde is not going of her own choice. She is in love with Johnny Shondell and they had hoped to record their latest duets together.
As Dave and Clete investigate further into the disappearance of Isolde, they are each confronted by unexplainable paranormal events. An unworldly man appears to them at different times and they can not decide if Gideon is a man out of their time or a product of them being drugged with LSD.
I won’t post spoilers, but there are so many interesting characters and scenes in this book! I always enjoy highlighting Dave’s reasoning and philosophies of life he has learned from hard experiences. He has memories that haunt him, but he made the best choices he could for the situation. A Private Cathedral must be added to a Dave Robicheaux book collection. *Violence/Language
Publication Date: May 26, 2020
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.
I have loved every one of the James Lee Burke’s books that I’ve read—it’s the poetry of his prose and the friendships among his primary characters. The stories hold my interest and I’m often sorry to reach the end. A Private Cathedral didn’t disappoint.
There are few surprises anymore in Robicheaux world – the plots, the settings and the characters follow well-trodden paths. But they are no less enjoyable for the familiarity and such is the sustained quality of the writing that every James Lee Burke is to be welcomed and cherished.
I love Dave Robicheaux and James Lee Burke.
James Lee Burke has it all- the way he writes…it makes me feel like I’m down there in Louisiana. I feel for Dave. And Clete. What a wonderful way that he writes.
Great characters, and plot. This book introduced me to the series, it was so good I started on the first book, and after 7 or 8 more am still going strong.
A Private Cathedral by James Lee Burke is a complex, at times confusing but richly woven tale. It’s an unusual mix of crime thriller and supernatural suspense set in New Orleans. Dave Robicheaux and his life-long friend Clete battle personal demons and multiple attempts on their lives. I adore the novels by James Lee Burke, but this one had me a bit lost at times. It’s worth the read, just different. Cheers Lynda L. Lock
This is Burke’s 40th novel. Burke is a prose lyricist; his words and sentence float off the pages like a song.
This outing is set fifteen or so years ago. Dave Robicheaux and his sidekick, the witty, complicated, and violent Clete Purcel, step between two warring families. One family has offered their teenage daughter as a sex slave to make amends for past grievousness.
Or something like that.
About those songs: Reading Burke is like listening to music in a foreign tongue. You might not understand it, but who cares? It’s just so beautiful. No one is here for the narrative flow.
Dave and Clete get caught in a magical time machine as galleon ships of old are a recurring theme, as are ancient torturing games—not to mention an incarnate evil man. (A ‘revelator.’ See Ace Atkins review below.) The revelator appears unchanged in pictures that span a century. Burke explores man’s inhumanity to man—a central theme to his impressive body of work. He takes it to a different sphere this time, warping time, and challenging his readers to give him some rope. Miles of it.
Good fiction is conflict and Burke places it front and center on every page. Violent and bloodied, the book is not for the faint of heart. And like many of his previous works, it is best if you try not to follow the plot too carefully. Why would Dave and Clete risk their lives for people they don’t know, or who appear to not even want their help? There is a fine line between flawed characters—those who engage in self-destructive behavior—and just plain stupid. Burke treads that line in this outing. Even Clete, never one to shy from a fight and hardly a flag bearer for a peaceable solution, is upset by his friend’s insistence on poking the hornets’ nest. Did Burke go too far? Or is he is telling us there is a blurred line between those we fear and those who protect us from those we fear?
Unless you keep a calculator handy, you’ll get lost in the body count and the over-the-top methods the author dissembles human bodies. The constant pounding of alcohol, depression, crude language, (although never in Dave Robicheaux’s house, a trait I find more hypocritical than admirable), Robicheaux’s waxing about the dark soul of humanity, (got it after the second time, skimmed it after the third), and the unrelenting reminders of Vietnam, the confederacy (and, let’s not forget that old chestnut, the Nazis), takes a toll. With no relief, they are like punches with nothing behind them. You become immune.
Maybe that’s our problem.
Throughout the book, Clete references a picture he carries of a woman and her children being led to gas chamber in the Second World War. “Who would do that?” he asks, more than once. The real question he wrestles with is, how is that so? In James Lee Burke’s world, evil resides in the dark heart of men. It has always been there and always well be. We must never become immune to it.
Part magic, part mystic, and part uncensored violence, A Private Cathedral is a tour de force of crime noir. It is powerful writing in a world where too many bestsellers of the genre are limp and insipid. Tormented by the darkness in their hearts, the characters are larger than life. Every page punches you in the gut. Every line of dialogue slaps you in the face.
There aren’t enough superlatives to describe any book by James Lee Burke. By now I feel as though Dave and Clete are old friends… slightly out there, but still friends. This is Burke’s 40th book and every one a masterpiece!!
If you haven’t read James Lee Burke’s Dave Robichaeux novels, start from the first one, which I think was Tin Roof Blowdown. One of the great American writers of our time.
In James Lee Burke’s A PRIVATE CATHEDRAL, Dave Robicheaux, the on-again, off-again cop, returns, He’s still damaged, courtesy of the Vietnam War and the death of two wives. A barely reformed drunk, Robicheaux and his imbibing buddy Clete Purcell, share a fatalistic view of the world that directs their often brutal response to injustice. Since I’d guess they’d be near or in their seventies in real time, Burke sets this story up as a recollection set in the vague recent past, perhaps fifteen years earlier. It works. The book is bittersweet, the descriptive passages achingly beautiful, the action merciless, violent and swift-moving. The experience is thrilling.
If you haven’t caught on to James Lee Burke and his Robicheaux series you’re missing out big time.
A deep exploration of evil with the marvelous language and engaging characters tradition of a Dave Robicheaux story.
I received a free electronic ARC of this novel from Netgalley, James Lee Burke, and Simon & Schuster. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I have read this novel of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work. James Lee Burke is one of my favorite authors who never disappoints. Though A Private Cathedral is a bit more of a downer than some of the earlier Dave Robicheaux novels, this one is right up there with the must-reads as are the other 22 Dave novels. If you haven’t met Dave and his best friend Clete Purcel there is no time like the present social distancing occasion to get acquainted. Your library probably has ALL of the James Lee Burke novels on their digital programs – Libby or Overdrive in most instances. The App is free, and the books automatically erase at the end of the loan period, usually 2 weeks. If time is heavy on your hands I can recommend binge-reading a few of these gems. Some are also movie choices now on AmazonPrime or NetFlix.
There are dark days ahead in Louisiana for Dave and his circle of friends, as we re-visit a few of the crime families in that neck of the woods, and are introduced to the newest generation of those rival crime families, teenager rock-and-rollers Isolde Balangie and Johnny Shondell. Dave has for him what is an eye-opener as he is drawn to a couple of very different women. Mostly Dave, a two-time widower, doesn’t involve himself with dating, he’s too busy raising Aliafair (in college, now) and solving crimes that circle around the New Orleans communities. Fired from several Police Departments in that environ – Dave had a problem with liquor at times – Dave is currently working for the Sherriff of Iberia County and has been sober for almost two years. One day at a time. In between jobs and on the side, Dave and Clete are private investigators who have a reputation for getting things done.
The timing of this novel is a couple of years after Katrina – there is still a lot going on with restoration work in the area, and it is an area pictured beautifully for you in this work. It makes me wish I didn’t hate humidity. We have old friends from previous novels and new acquaintances, and we travel up and down the highways – mostly the little one’s, staying off of Interstate 10 and Highway 90 – as we travel from clue to clue. If you love the swamp, you will feel right at home. If like me you love the desert, the emotional visit is welcome as our daily temp hit 93 degrees on May 5, 2020.
If you love Burke, don’t miss this book, releasing on August 11th according to AmazonSmile today. If you don’t know him, give him a read. He is to the Southern Gulf Coast what Harry Bosch is to LA, CA. and Jesse Stone is to the Eastern Seaboard.
pub date August 11, 2020
Simon & Schuster
Reviewed on Goodreads and Netgalley on May 11, 2020.
A PRIVATE CATHEDRAL by James Lee Burke is the twenty-third book in the Dave Robicheaux series. This is categorized as a crime thriller, but it also has a bit of supernatural suspense thrown into the mix. Detective Dave Robicheaux has been fired or suspended from three police forces in and around New Orleans, Louisiana. However, he does get a job back with the sheriff’s office during this book. The New Iberia criminal underworld has two families that are longtime enemies; the Shondells and the Balangies. When the youngest heirs of each family fall in love, there is bound to be trouble.
Dave and his best friend Clete are flawed protagonists. Dave is an alcoholic, but has not had a drink in nearly two years. He also has a tendency to fall hard for beautiful women and he is generally a very polite person. On the other hand, Clete has both alcohol and anger management problems. He is a disgraced policeman, who works as a private investigator. The secondary characters were there, but I did not feel that they had enough depth.
The author painted vivid descriptions throughout the book that helped me easily picture the people, places and actions. However, the sheer amount of it slowed the pace of the book substantially. The battle between good and evil was clear, but actions were not always legal. There were a few things which were not neatly wrapped up enough to satisfy me that I can’t describe here without spoilers.
Several themes run through the story line including human trafficking, racism, torture, murder, alcoholism, drug use and much more. Overall, the book was complex and suspenseful, but it left me wanting a cleaner ending. I recommend it to those readers who enjoy the series.
Thanks to Simon & Schuster and James Lee Burke for a complimentary ARC of this novel via NetGalley and the opportunity to provide an honest review. Opinions are mine alone and are not biased in any way.
private-investigators, assassins, Louisiana, supernatural, superstitions, evil, trafficking
Even darker than usual, but every bit as riveting. There is more magic and a prevailing sense of evil in a book that seems just a tad too intense this time with the bad guys far outnumbering the forces for good. The publisher’s blurb is an excellent hook and the writing kept me at this book until finished with only necessary interruptions. No spoilers allowed and I really am at a loss as to how to summarize without using them. Bottom line is that I will buy my own copy when it comes out in audio.
I requested and received a free ebook copy from Simon and Schuster via NetGalley Thank you!
384 pages
5 stars
Dave Robicheaux and Clete Purcell have gotten themselves in a real pickle in this latest book from James Lee Burke.
Dave, Clete and Father Julian get on the wrong side of the Balangie and Shondell clans. These are two mobster families who are trying to get the upper hand – and using their children as pawns. Each is murderous and very violent when they don’t get their way. When Johnny, a very talented young musician, and Isolde, a pretty young woman, decide to team up to make music the stage is set for explosive action. And a further complication is Dave’s attraction to one of the wives.
Add to this the haunting dreams, memories and a supernatural element experienced by several of the key characters. The stuff of dreams…Is it real? A result of great stress or guilt felt by those who experience the psychological effects or is it conscience?
Mr. Burke explores these issues in this volume. Is evil real or a product of our imagination? Can we see it; touch it? I love the way that Mr. Burke’s books explore these questions in all his books, but he really brings it home in this one.
Mr. Burke can certainly turn a phrase. I really like that he interjects bits of wry humor into his stories. I love the philosophical side trips and the journeys into Dave and Clete’s pasts. They are fascinating characters. I’ve been reading Mr. Burke’s books since the first one and I must say this one has really made an impact. It may just be his best book so far.
I want to send a hearty thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for forwarding to me a copy of this most intriguing book for me to read, enjoy and review.