A writer of great skill and power, Burke has been a novelist for almost forty years, beginning in the late 1960s, after he returned from duty in Vietnam. He had written five acclaimed novels, including the Pulitzer nominated The Lost Get-Back Boogie, before his first crime novel, The Neon Rain, appeared in 1987. Set in a brilliantly evoked New Orleans, the book introduced Dave Robicheaux, Vietnam vet, practicing Catholic and alcoholic police detective. A Cajun who lives in a houseboat on the river and a maverick investigator whose struggle not to succumb to his weakness for alcohol is a potent portion of the drama in the series, Robicheaux is a charismatic and highly compelling character. Vivid and beautiful descriptive passages of the region's flora and fauna contrast strongly with sudden descents into mind-boggling violence, revealing how the sensual and idyllic setting of Louisiana is also an arena seething in brooding, primeval malevolence.

The novel opens with Robicheaux indulging in his favorite pastime of fishing and, while testing his rod in a backwoods bayou, he discovers a body in the water. The corpse is that of a prostitute and addict, and repeated warnings from both sides of the law to let this seemingly unimportant death be quietly filed away convince him that he is stumbled on to something nasty. Before long, he is mired in a swamp of corrupt police officials, local mobsters, Nicaraguan drug dealers, Treasury agents and retired military personnel, along with a scheme to smuggle arms to the Contras. As these disparate forces combine to first frame him and then kill him, he is soon trying desperately to stay one step ahead of his assailants and fighting for his life. Burke is one of the most important crime novelists to have emerged in the last twenty years, and this remains one of finest books.

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