Jolie Blon's Bounce

Description

Three men are present when Amanda Boudreau is raped and murdered, and small-time hustler Tee Bobby Hulin's prints are found at the crime scene. Dave Robicheaux reckons he's innocent, and Tee Bobby pleads so, then attempts suicide in his holding cell. Why? Tee Bobby is released on bail and soon after there is a second murder. When lawyer Perry LaSalle takes on the defence of Tee Bobby, Dave knows his motives are fuelled by guilt. For Tee Bobby's grandmother was seduced by Perry's grandfather, and Amanda Boudreau's death is related to events that happened long before Tee Bobby was born...

James Lee Burke is the author of many previous novels, including twelve featuring Detective Dave Robicheaux. He lives with his wife, Pearl, in Missoula, Montana and New Iberia, Louisiana.

James Lee Burke is the heavyweight champ, a great American novelist whose work, taken individually or as a whole, is unsurpassed. * Michael Connelly * We expect high standards of James Lee Burke. He is not just a fantastic crime novelist, he is a fantastic novelist. Jolie Blon's Bounce is so far above the prevailing standards of crime fiction that it is pointless to make the comparison. With every book his sombre, ruminative writing gets more powerful, his denunciation of the evil he sees around him more stern. Jolie Blon's Bounce is probably his darkest, angriest novel yet. And his best * Express * He has always been a writer of infinite promise and surprise. The promises have all been kept. The surprises go on and on * Literary Review * James Lee Burke just gets better and better . . . With each new novel James Lee Burke reaffirms his status as the best crime writer around: no one else can create, as he does here, such a gallery of extraordinary, brilliantly described characters, can integrate them into a complex, intriguing plot, and can use language with such sharp precision, while at the same time being so sensuously aware of every nuance of sight, smell and taste * Evening Standard * A gorgeous prose stylist. * Stephen King * Richly deserves to be described now as one of the finest crime writers America has ever produced. * Daily Mail * Majestic . . . In what makes his work distinctive - Faulknerian grotesque characters, lyrical expressionist use of landscape, dancing dialogue - Jolie Blon's Bounce is as rich as any of Burke's Louisiana novels * Sunday Times Culture * The gentle giant of US crime writers, Burke always ensures that his Louisiana detective Dave Robicheaux grapples with hot topics as much as with his own inner demons. * i newspaper * There are not many crime writers about whom one might invoke the name of Zola for comparison, but Burke is very much in that territory. His stamping ground is the Gulf coast, and one of the great strengths of his work has always been the atmospheric background of New Orleans and the bayous. His big, baggy novels are always about much more than the mechanics of the detective plot; his real subject, like the French master, is the human condition, seen in every situation of society. * Independent * The king of Southern noir. * Daily Mirror * His lyrical prose, his deep understanding of what makes people behave as they do, and his control of plot and pace are masterly. * Sunday Telegraph * Critics are running out of superlatives to describe the writing of James Lee Burke . . . Burke is an American original * Observer * This author is more and more a writer for our times * Guardian * When it comes to literate, pungently characterised American crime writing, James Lee Burke has few peers. * Daily Express * Burke is such a fine writer and evokes the fetid swamps and bayous, brilliant rain-and-sun-drenched landscapes of his native place so well that one is captivated . . . It is always difficult in a short review to give more than a hint of the denseness and atmosphere of a Lee Burke novel, for layer is piled upon layer in a weave of plot and subplot, with perfectly observed characters coming and going with insidious intent. Suffice to say that this one sees our author at his sinister best, stirring the pot gleefully and throwing in ever more juicy components to keep it bubbling malevolently * Irish Times * Dark, intelligent and poetic * Observer * A new Dave Robicheaux mystery is a treat to be savoured, for James Lee Burke's small-town Louisiana cop is one of the most interesting and complex characters in crime fiction . . . Dark and compelling this is James Lee Burke at his best, delivering a fast-moving, mayhem-filled walk on the wild side of the Louisiana bayous and levees and their bizarre and outlandish residents * Irish Independent *