My wife and I have been reading James Lee Burke since he started being published. His descriptions of his surroundings, and his prose in general have become increasingly impressive and delightful, suggesting he may be studying the Masters. Indeed, in this book, if prose can be rated on a scale of 1-5, with 5 being the best, this book should be rated a 10! Further, I suggest that readers beware: if you have other pressing "gotta-do's" on your agenda, don't start this book because you likely will not put it down until you have read the last sentence.
I rated this book a 3.5 vs a 5.0 because, along with being more prosaic, Burke seems to me to be increasingly base, ugly and disgusting in some of his characters who have barely graduated from animals to humans. The details of one man raping another could not bave been more repugnant, and, I believe is a first for Burke. A backhoe operator digging deep graves in which he intends to deposit newly created human corpses is also a first. As Burke has said, in this and previous books, worms and snakes crawl through his mind in all phases of daily living & sleeping --- lonliness, fear, exhilarations and on and on. There are just more pages of this kind of repugnances than I care to read.
In summary, this is a book that is well worth reading keeping in mind these caveats.

We listened to the audio version while traveling cross country. The reader was talented but the story was so raw and brutal it was hard to take. I have never read this author before and probably won't again. If stark brutality is your thing you may like it but be warned it is not for the faint of heart. The only thing we really enjoyed was the outlandishly descriptive language which was sometimes so over the top we had to laugh. The author must write with a text book of over blown adjectives with the object of using as many as he can cram onto the page.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Dave Robicheaux, his wife, Molly, and sidekick, Clete Purcell, leave ravaged New Orleans for some R&R, peace and quiet and some fishing in Montana. But where Dave and Clete are, tranquility is rarely, if ever, present. No sooner do they get there then trouble finds them--in spades.

While fishing, Clete is accosted by two men telling him he is trespassing on the land of a wealthy Texas oil family, the Wellstones. Soon, Dave and Clete are in the middle of not one, but two, double murders. Clete's past association with a mafia don comes home to haunt him. Then Clete finds himself amorously involved with the wife of one of the Wellstone brothers, among other entanglements. Meanwhile there are subplots involving other characters, and it all becomes very complicated.

Written with the accustomed smoothness of a Robicheaux novel---this is the 17th in the series---the setting enables the author to pay tribute to one of his two homes--Montana--where he lives in addition to the one in New Iberia, LA, Dave's normal domicile. It all comes down to an astounding finish. Don't miss this one!

The New Orlean detective hopes for some R&R in the Bitter Root Valley of Western Montana, but finds trouble follows him north. A gripping tale, but not for the faint of heart.

Fans of James Lee Burke will love this latest book about murder in Montana and the foibles of sidekick Clet Purcell.

Loved it! I didn't want to reach the end and I can hardly wait for the next Dave Robicheaux novel. Keep them coming James Lee Burke!

I bought this audiobook to listen to on a long drive. It was interesting enough to listen through the end, but I frankly wished I had an alternative. I just didn't like it very much perhaps because I didn't connect with any of the characters.

This book is better than his recent efforts in terms of the descriptive writing and eloquent language. He's written better 10 years ago, however. There are some passages in Swan Peak that stop you with their wonderful writing, but not as many as I recall from the books including and around Confederate Mist.
One negative to the book from my perspective is that he has 2 characters who begin the novel in same sex situations and then each character magically discovers sex with a different gender partner and sticks with that. It's a bit unrealistic, particularly in the case of the lesbian FBI agent.
Good to see Burke in good form after I was so disappointed with the new Elizabeth George novel that I read right before Swan Peak. George and Burke are normally my favorite 2 authors.

Paul

Disappointed at first, that we were not going to be in Louisiana, it did not take long to get fully immersed in the new venue and as usual a compelling tale.

Can't say enough good things about Will Patton's incredible reading of this novel.

Consider Swan Peak a taut Dave Robicheaux thriller about bringing down the bad guys transferred from Katrina-depleted Louisiana to sparking Montana. Since Louisiana is usually the major character in this series' books, that shift cuts down the local color by one star.

Are there sleazy people in Montana? They seem to be everywhere that Dave and Clete Purcell look.

Dave and Molly have left Louisiana to recover from Katrina, and Clete has joined them. Naturally, it doesn't take much for Clete to begin stirring things up. In this case, a choice of campground begins an escalating conflict that no one seems to be able to or wants to avoid.

Pretty soon bodies are piling up around Dave and Clete, but it's not clear what the motives are. Both with and without encouragement, Dave begins investigating. That search draws them both into the business of the local, reclusive rich who want to drill for oil and gas and make lots of money through evangelism. It's an odd group of people, and the closer you look . . . the odder it gets.

In a related story line, a convict looks to do his time and get out . . . but a gun bull has other ideas.

The book's main weakness is that James Lee Burke often tells rather than shows what's going on. At times, you'll feel like you are in a lecture hall rather than reading an engrossing book.

As usual, the story has more slime in it than ten usual murder mysteries. But overcoming the slime is part of the appeal of this series so I'm sure you know what to expect.

Dave & Clete & Molly are on vacation from New Orleans, back in Big Sky Country Montana when old ghosts of several kinds rear up and murder most foul entangles them with some very very bad customers.

Ah, it's summertime and another James Lee Burke Dave Robicheaux novel. Burke's style has smoothed out to such a pleasurable read that, for my money, he can write a Robicheaux a year forever and it'll suit me fine. He gives a lot of time in this one to Clete Purcell who is a favorite character of mine. Bad bad villains, Burke's poetic touch with scene and setting, unexpected and explosive violence from Dave and Clete, and always good and surprising characters and situations. Burke's earlier work was denser, but like all series writers, time and comfort create a simpler and cleaner style, and while I liked the earlier work for what it gave, I equally admire the smooth delivery of the later stuff. The stars are for fans.

I am a serious fan of James Lee Burke and his protagonists. While not my favorite, I loved reading this book and had difficulty putting it down even when I had finished!

Having read almost the entire literary output of James Lee Burke, I can say there is nothing in his admirable works which reached this level. Swan Peak is a s complex in plot and developed in descriptive detail as any reader could wish. In this big novel, over four hundred pages, there comes a mid point where the many stories seem to be diverging and then Burke starts to entangle them in such a way that the multiple tales, Robicheaux and Purcell, the Wellstones, J. D Gribble, Troyce Nix, and even Sally Dio from an earlier story and all their associets figure in the resolution. Meanwhile Burke explores his theme of the causes and effects of violence in and on the human heart. All of this takes place in an area stretching from Texas to Montana, on farms and in cities, mansions and revival tents, in the forests and along the high trout streams of Montana. At one point Burke speaks of Hemingway and as we observe the fly skipping across the stream in the early morning light, the trout on the campfire frying pan, the coffee pot on the boil we cannot fail to visit the Big Two Hearted River or the streams in the mountains in The Sun also Rises. As the novel comes to a conclusion there is a sense of the importance of "the struggle" in an otherwise dangerous and depressing world and a sense of the continuing need for self forgiveness and a desire for justice.

This is not an easy read. It is not a beach book. It is not happy. It is a serious and thoughtful look at our world by a novelist who has taken the hardboiled detective genre to some new level, that of the literary novel. It demands attention but it repays it in the pleasure that great art always gives. Burke has achieved what will be seen as a true masterpiece.

Everytime I think I am ready to write the Great American Novel, or at least something that will ring the cash register in Florida, I read or re-read James Lee Burke and decide my father wsa right when he said "I should be selling shoes". If Mr Burke is not the greatest living American writer he is certainly on the short list. Kudos, James Lee, and keep writing so I don't have to.

Up front I have to say I love James Lee Burke's books. This one I enjoyed
more than the last two he wrote. Again, one has to accept the highly
unlikely premise that everywhere Dave and Clete go, they get into large
doses of trouble. Even a fishing trip in Montana, as far away from their
home turf as possible, turns into a wild ride for the boys. But, who cares? It is always a highly enjoyable trip and Jimmy Lee doesn't disappoint. Burke fans will love it.

If you've ever seen the movie, Heaven's Prisoners, starring Alec Baldwin and Eric Roberts, then you're already familiar with the character of Dave Robicheaux, an ex-Vietnam veteran and ex-NOPD Homicide detective who now runs a bait shop in New Iberia, a parish outside of New Orleans, and in the later novels, also works for the local police department, giving them almost as much grief as he did the NOPD in putting down the bad guys. Author James Lee Burke has been writing this series since the late eighties and has developed a large fan base of avid readers who literally crave a "Robicheaux" six every year. I know because I'm one of them. All the books in this fantastic series are good, while some are truly excellent and have a literary quality that will make them classics in the years ahead.

Now, we come to the newest and perhaps the best book in the series, Swan Peak. Robicheaux, his wife, Molly, and his close friend and ex-NOPD partner, Clete Purcel, are vacationing in Montana this time around, wanting to get away from the chaos of New Orleans after its destruction by hurricane Katrina and the slow rebuilding by the U.S. Government. Trouble is the last thing that they're looking for, but it finds them nevertheless when Purcel discovers an out-of-the-way stream to fish in, only to be run off by employees of the Wellstone Ranch. This starts a chain of events that will not only include a battle with the Wellstone family, but the search for a serial killer who has been murdering for decades. Not only that, but the story includes a Texas gumball who travels to Montana in search of an escaped convict, who stuck a handmade knife into him after being sexually abused, plus the possibility that Sally Dios (the mobster that Pucel thought he'd killed in an arranged airplane crash) might actually be alive and seeking revenge. Before the ending is reached and nearly a dozen people have died, both Robicheaux and Purcel will find themselves on their knees beside an open grave, waiting to be executed and wishing there was a better way to die.

Swan Peak is perhaps the most complex of the "Dave Robicheaux" novels with the author juggling several sub-plots around and managing to bring them all together into a perfect ending. There are characters you'll like and some you'll hate, and even a few you will change your mind about before the final pages are reached. I'll state right now that James Lee Burke is the most literally of the authors I read, and his prose is like the soft touch of velvet across one's skin, creating images that bring alive the beauty and essence of Louisiana, or in this case, Montana. His words have a way of capturing and captivating the reader, luring them into a scene as if they were living it to the fullest extent. His characters are always true to life, rather than caricatures that are generally found in other books by different authors. For me, Dave Robicheaux isn't a fictional creation, but rather a friend that I get to visit with once a year and play some catch-up with. In another sense, Robicheaux is "everyman" with his strengths and weaknesses, attempting to live a good life while battling the evil that seeks to erupt from just beneath the surface of humanity and envelope those within its reach.

The "Dave Robicheaux" series is probably the best in its genre, giving new authors a look at what it takes to master the written word and to tell a damn good story. Swan Peak will grab you in the first few pages, offer you strong characterization, tense plotting, prose that will have you reading out loud, and an ending that will take your breath away. James Lee Burke has done what most series authors never achieve: he's written a novel that surpasses the previous books in the series. Highly recommended!

How can you move the "New Orleans" feeling to Montana? Burke does it with style. The elements are there and the story unfolds with his unique style. Not my favorite "Burke" but wonderful to experience and enjoy.

Even in a strange place, our boy comes thru with flying colors. His pal needs some real help with his ghosts. The description of the area was excellent. On a par with his descriptions of the "big easy". The cast of characters was well done, as usual, however, he needs to get back to bayou country. I await the next story with anticipation: Where will it be located??

James Lee Burke cannot write fast enough to make me happy. This book does not disappoint and I am always a little saddened to turn that last page. The characters are so wonderfully flawed. Write faster James Lee, write faster.

I've read all of this series. For longstanding fans of Dave and Clete, this will be a treat, as usual. For others, the thing that strikes me as noteworthy is that here there are characters who redeem themselves. Troyce Nix, an abusive prison guard, does the right thing in the end. J.D., the country singer on the lam, can't help it that he does the right thing and saves people's lives -- and ends up surviving himself. And so it also goes for Candance, who by happenstance brings Troyce a world of good and in effect saves J.D.'s life. The book has a quality of the redemption of lost or unlucky souls -- something that the earlier books in this series bestows on Clete, but not generally. It is strangely upbeat for this excellent series. Highly recommended.

I fell in love with the author many years ago. I have completed almost all of his works. I enjoyed Swan Peak and eagerly await his next novel.

I fell in love with the author many years ago. I have completed almost all of his works. I enjoyed Swan Peak and eagerly await his next novel.

ANOTHER GREAT BOOK BY BURKE. ROBICHEAUX FANS WILL LOVE IT. WILL PATTON IS THE BEST READER AROUND FOR MY MONEY.

(3.5 stars) A middling James Lee Burke book is still MILES ahead of most other writers' work in the crime fiction genre. This one, altho not up to the standards of the previous "Tin Roof Blowdown", is well worth reading. I agree with some previous posters that the plot lines are too numerous & unnecessarily tangled. The book would have been helped by leaning it down a bit by dropping a couple of subplots. I disagree, however, with those who believe the book was hurt by temporarily leaving New Orleans & moving to the soaring "Big Country" setting. I think Burke brilliantly juxtaposes with bitter irony the edenic, "Heaven's Gate" Montana setting in all its staggering natural beauty against the petty, narrow minded, sometimes outright evil & horrific actions of various tormented human beings found in the book. It was also interesting to see how one tortured character who had committed many horrific acts in his past found redemption of a sort with a good woman, rather than his receiving the usual expected comeuppance of brutal street justice that is usually meted out to such characters in this series. Finally, I see all the debate about how Dave & Clete are portrayed as acting much younger & much more physically fit & formidable than men who are their actual ages. I really feel readers need to suspend disbelief about the "age factor" of the heroes in these various genre series. Robert Parker's Spenser is a Korean War veteran, even older than Robicheaux & Purcel, & still performing much larger than life derring do. I think we need to see these larger than life protagonists as forever sealed in still-vigorous middle age, rather than as preposterously unlikely senior citizens. Lawrence Block tried to portray his Matthew Scudder character as acting like his actual age in the last couple of books in that series, & the results were sad & dismal (at least for this fan). So I think it's either end these series & maybe create younger series heroes, or use artistic license & keep the older characters going frozen at an (inaccurate) younger age. Since I enjoy reading about these characters' exploits so much & don't want them to go away, I prefer the latter course.

Dave & Clete leave the big sleazy & head north to Montana to fish. Not before long Clete is fishing but in trouble again. He & Dave colide with a double homicide which begins their journey into the caves of degradation that are hiding in Montana. They have to re adjust their vietnam memories to get past these next sources of evil & maybe one other from the past that they thought was gone in a ball of fire. More murder & mayhem occur & more sleaze as they get to the finale.

I have read Burke's series on Dave Robicheaux since his initial novel on the New Orleans cop many years ago. With each book in the series, it amazes me how he is able to add more detail and depth to his characters. Swan Lake takes place in Montana, where Dave and Clete confront a ghost (of sorts) from their past. Like the other characters in the story, the two protagonists are basically good people whose flaws and character defects make them all the more interesting.

I am a fan of James Lee Burke and look forward to every Dave Robicheaux novel. Mind you, it isn't a bad read - it simply does not compare well with his other work. Not a big deal really since every author occasionally doesn't quite hit the mark.

"Swan Peak" is weighed down with too many nefarious, if not nebulous, characters chasaing too many plots, sub-plots and backstories. In my opinion, the story would have been improved by slimming it down.

Robicheaux and his wife Molly, with Clete Purcel tagging along, are vacationing on a friend's property in Montana, far from their native New Iberia and New Orleans. Purcel is always a bull in a china shop and this outing is no different. In fact, Clete is almost buffoonish in this novel.

Burke, of course, is not writing a story about how Dave, Molly and Clete spent their summer vacation. With those two guys, there has to be trouble brewing - and there is. A pair of college kids, seemingly with innocent backgrounds, are brutally murdered on a hill above Robicheaux's friend's property. Immediately suspected are the rich, secretive Wellstone brothers, whose "security" personnel have already had a run-in with Clete. One of the brothers has a badly disfigured face from being burned in a French Foreign Legion tank. The other brother has an unspecified malady that puts him on crutches. Barely have the bodies of the two college students cooled, when two more bodies are discovered. The two have also been brutally murdered and disfigured.

The disfigured Wellstone brother is married to a beautiful woman with a beautiful voice and a beautiful son, who was fathered by a man imprisoned in Texas - until, of course, he escapes. A brutal prison guard stays on his trail as he heads north to Montana.

Now throw in an assortment of oddball locals, a rough woman with a heart of gold, FBI agents, a local sheriff and Burke's ruminations on the Vietnam and Iraq wars and you have the makings of an overly complicated plot. On top of that, add in the crash of an airplane years ago that may have been caused by Clete Purcel and a storyline that never quite catches up with itself and you have a somewhat unsatisfying James Lee Burke novel.

Needless to say, Dave Robicheaux and particularly Clete Purcel narrowly escape injury and death on several occasions and have all kinds of bad guys to deal with.

Frankly, it all got tiresome. The ending was long, drawn out and way too predictable, as well as being unbelievable.

In all, not a great read. Definitely not a bad book, but not on a par with most of James Lee Burke's other work. Hopefully, he'll be back to speed with the next Dave Robicheaux novel.

Jerry

I've read ever JLB book since the beginning. But, even good writers go bad. Same plot, same bad guy types, same demons. Let's face it, the Bobsey Twins are getting a little too long in the tooth to be the daring duo AND 40+ years is too long for post-traumatic stress - get some counseling already.

Dave and Clete are at it again--creating mayhem wherever they go. Only this time it's in Montana, not New Orleans. Supposedly they have come north to get a little rest in God's country, do some fishing, etc., and relax. Needless to say, nothing like this happens--at least not for long.

The dynamic duo is the lastest version of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Like their Spanish forbears, they tilt at windmills--the machinery of exploitation, cruelty, and social injustice. Quixote's insanity becomes Dave's alcoholism. His devotion to Dulcinea morphs into Clete's hopeless and inappropriate attachment to two women.

Like Cormac McCarthy, Burke's subtext is a Christian one, specifically Catholic--with an emphasis on Original Sin. Cast as the "good guys," both protagonists are deeply flawed. As difficult as it is to battle external enemies, the hardest fight is the perpettual internal one, specifically against alcoholism and eruptions of uncontrolled violence.

There's an interesting exchange between Dave and his wife Molly, the ex-Maryknoll missionary. She tells him, "You can't change the world."

He replies, "Why did you work in El Salvador and Guatemala?"

"So the world wouldn't change me. There's a big difference."

Burke seems to take seriously St John the Evangelist's observation that Satan is the "prince of this world." Or as Paladin, the "knight without armor in a savage land," remarked: "The good die young that they may not be corrupted. The wicked live on, that they may have a chance to repent."

"Swan Peak" is 17th in James Lee Burke's police procedural/thriller, very satisfactorily noir series, starring Dave Robicheaux, former drunk, former New Orleans cop, now a detective in the employ of New Iberia, Louisiana. Burke is certainly one of the great stars of current mystery writers: a rare winner of two Edgar Awards, and the author of 26 previous novels and two collections of short stories. He currently lives in Missoula, Montana, and New Iberia, Louisiana. "Swan Peak" has been written, and set, in the post-Katrina world, after the devastating hurricane that drowned the famous hometown of both Burke, and his fictional creation, Robicheaux. It finds the detective in Montana, where, like his creator, he's been hanging out a lot recently.

Robicheaux' new wife Molly, a former nun, is hanging with him, as is his buddy from New Orleans cop days, Clete Purcel. But we don't see anything of his daughter Alafair, nor of Ba'tiste, the black man who helps run Robicheaux' fishing station in Louisiana. Otherwise, many of the stock characters Burke has gotten into the habit of using are around, of course under new names. But longtime readers will recognize them. There's the nasty perverted, and disabled rich guy-- -guys in this case, two brothers, Ridley and Leslie Wellstone: their chances of getting into heaven appear to be even less than the Biblical chances of getting a camel through the eye of a needle. There's the beautiful vulnerable wife of one of them, Jamie Sue, a former country singer who should have known better. This character, the beautiful vulnerable rich man's wife, has frequently been a former girl friend of Robicheaux', but in the book at hand, she's another character's former girlfriend. That would be Jimmie Dale Greenwood, another character that turns up frequently in Burke's work: the talented country musician who's torpedoed his life and career with poor choices that land him in jail. There's the idealistic, naïve friend who's host to the Robicheaux and Purcel; who's making himself a pain to the rich Wellstone brothers in their oil and gas businesses. There's the corrupt predatory Pentecostal preacher with the funny name, Sonny Click. And there's the nasty perverted, Southern, military-back grounded prison guard with the funny name, Troyce Nix. And his girlfriend Candace. Burke's plot, in its outcomes, is kinder to some of these characters than he has generally been.

Then, of course, there's the mystery: two harmless college kids have turned up brutally murdered, as have a Hollywood porn producer and his former prostitute girlfriend. And the crimes seem to lead back to the Wellstone boys. We see quite a lot of Clete Purcel in this book, and hear quite a lot about Sally Dio, a particularly nasty wise guy that Purcel may have helped go bye-bye. It's a satisfying, complex plot, well-drawn, and well-written.

Like many of his other readers, I expect, I prefer the New Orleans books, where Burke's environmental/nature writing practically comes up off the page, it's so beautifully done. But his Montana nature/history writing is also quite nice. We've seen many of this book's characters before, even seen the way they interact, but most prolific writers do have characters that are important to them, and will turn up repeatedly. Burke is still making good use of them, turning out highly satisfying mysteries.

Swan Peak by James Lee Burke is the 16th book in his Dave Robicheaux series, and this novel is dark, evil and wonderfully written.

Detective Dave Robicheaux hails from New Iberia, Louisiana. He's spending the summer in Montana with his wife Molly, and best friend Clete Purcell. Robicheaux plans on spending his days fishing and enjoying the Bitterroots. Events conspire against him, and as usual with Dave and Clete, trouble seems to follow them where ever they go.
Two college co-eds are brutally murdered, and one is found near where Robicheaux is staying. Two tourists are also found murdered at a rest stop. Robicheaux feels that the Wellstone brothers, Ridley and Leslie are somehow behind the evil things happening in this small town of Missoula. The Wellstones made their money in Texas, and are now operating a local ministry. Leslie Wellstone, a monster of a man with burn scars all over his face, is married to the pretty country singer, Jamie Sue Stapleton. At the same time, Jamie Sue's true love, Jimmy Dale Greenwood, escapes from a Texas jail after being brutalized by a jail gunbull, Troyce Nix. Nix knows that Greenwod will try to find Jamie Sue and follows Greenwood to Montana. And as if this isn't enough darkness going on, Purcell and Robicheaux are both dealing with demons caused by their childhoods, their Viet Nam experiences and in Robicheaux's case, his battle to stay sober. How these people all converge in this small town and the end results are as surprising as they are masterful.

In terms of writing, James Lee Burke it not just a mystery writer, but an author who writes mysteries. His books are written in a style that can be found in good literature. In fact, in addition to two different mystery series, Burke is the author of eight novels. When Clete became frustrated with the happenings in Missoula, "He closed his cell phone and flipped it over his shoulder onto the bed. If ever reincarnated, he vowed, he would live in a stone hut on top of a mountain in Tibet, thousands of miles away from people whose lives were modeled on the lyrics of country-and-western songs."

James Lee Burke has been publishing a new Robicheaux every July, and it's one of the things I most look forward to during the summer.

"The great joke is that any wisdom most of us acquire can seldom be passed on to others. I suspect that reality is at the heart of most old people's anger."
Our hero is getting old. The author passes on some of his wisdom that will be passed from hand to hand, as long as great writing has value. You can't read Burke quickly. A turn of phrase, an image, causes the reader to pause, repeat, reflect. A treasure for his audience.

Grit and grace...It's these two elements that keep drawing me back to the writing of James Lee Burke. For years, the vibe of New Orleans and New Iberia set the stage for Burke's memorable sets of characters, but in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina he has painted stirring portraits of those bygone days.

This time, Dave Robicheaux and Clete Purcel are in Montana, with plans to fish and relax. Dave has turned more introspective with age, contemplating his eventual demise, while Clete seems more determined than ever to walk down a path of self-destruction. Enter the brutal demise of two college-aged kids not far from where Dave and Clete are staying, and things quickly turn sour. Clete is into his usual trouble. Dave is playing damage control for his best friend and for his own set of inner demons.

All of this sounds familiar to Burke fans, and it is. But he adds nuances to our old friends, while also bringing in a colorful cast of villains and down-and-outers. Troyce Nix and his unveiling throughout the story is a masterpiece of characterization, fortified by the steady touch of Candace. We run into disingenuous preachers, double-minded law officers, and many who just want to find peace with their past so that they can move on.

It's these elements of tragedy and violence, with hints of grace and peace, that make this one of Burke's best--and that's saying a lot.

Having read every single one of JLB's books this most recent addition to his ever growing body of bestsellers is excellent. If you want to get away and find yourself seemingly embodied by interesting, albeit, shady characters, and smack dab in the middle of a locale you may have never visited, be it New Orleans or Montana, READ this guy!

James Lee Burke dwells in that rarified stratosphere with writers whose fans so anticipate the arrival of a new novel that they snap it up, sight unseen, the moment it hits the market. His writing is like a straight shot of single malt Scotch, or dark chocolate laced with Grand Marnier --- an acquired taste, fueling the imagination with a jolt to the system. Each new event in the life of Cajun detective Dave Robicheaux is a journey with a hero who has battled more dragons than St. George. Dave's legendary triumphs over the mafia, the degenerates and the saints of the mean streets of New Orleans, and the cops who are made up from both sides, are laid against his internal battles with alcoholism and personal loss. His lifelong best friend and former NOPD partner, Clete Purcell, battles his own inner demons with a heart that is even bigger than his hulking form.

Dave and Clete have survived the hell that was Katrina, so richly portrayed in Burke's last stunning novel, THE TIN ROOF BLOWDOWN. Along with Dave's ex-nun wife, Molly, they seek escape from the ravaged Louisiana coast to a friend's mountain ranch retreat in Montana. As they look forward to casting their lines in the trout streams on a relaxing getaway, their idyllic escape is shattered when two college kids are found brutally murdered on their host's ranch.

Dave reluctantly accepts a deputy's badge to aid local police in interviewing witnesses. When two tourists are savagely killed in a manner bearing similarities to the college students' deaths, the two veteran detectives see a pattern that the rural sheriff's department overlooks.

Dave and Clete, both veterans of Vietnam, harbor ghosts that are never laid to rest. Their reputation for violent and sometimes lurid events as New Orleans cops follows them no matter how far they roam, but they don't expect to find their vacation haunted by the ghost of an incident that occurred over 20 years earlier. As Clete drinks and brawls his way ever further on his self-destructive journey to hell and beyond, he manages to lumber into the midst of an FBI investigation. Sally Dio, a vicious New Orleans mob boss who was believed killed in a 1989 plane crash in Montana, remains the subject of a reopened FBI investigation. Clete was an early suspect in that long-ago plane crash, and his arrival on the scene two decades later is viewed with suspicion by the Feds.

SWAN LAKE, with its wild and woolly cast of country western singers, holy-roller evangelists and con men, grabs you aboard a whirlwind ride to a surprising plot twist at the end that will keep you turning pages into the wee hours.

Only James Lee Burke can weave a complex plot with so many disparate time frames and characters into a cohesive and brilliantly written novel. Our two heroes, both pushing their luck conducting police work at an age when most cops are either retired or dead, can still hold their own against bad guys of such monumental evil. Burke portrays raw human nature against the backdrop of a world gone slightly mad. To know Dave Robicheaux and the vivid characters who live in his world is to admire his strengths and weaknesses in equal measure. His fans are happy that the old boy still has the chops to keep up the good fight.

--- Reviewed by Roz Shea

Although I am an unapologetic James Lee Burke fan, I was disappointed in Swan Peak. The Montana setting, with its big skies and vistas, diminishes the claustrophobic effects of the South Louisiana locales that serve as major character in most of the other Robicheaux/Purcel tales. Horrible things are happening to little people in a big world instead of big people in a more confined space. Despite Burke's superlative craftsmanship, the disonnance of scale lessens the overall power of the book.

That is not to say Swan Peal in anything less than a worthwhile read. Dave is still haunted, Clete is still a runaway bus in a school crossing and the rest of the cast is finely wrought, but Swan Peak remains a fish out of water. As both the characters and the author age, one can only hope for a homecoming.

Dave Robicheaux and his long time partner and best friend, Clete Purcell are in need of a long, deserved rest. Upon invitation of a friend, they decide to emotionally recuperate in the beautiful, rugged mountains of western Montana. Soon after their arrival, Clete bumps into a couple of punks, one whom he recognizes as a scum ball that used to work for an underworld crime figure in Vegas. The two undesirables are security for the Wellstone family, another bunch with secret, lowlife agendas.

Soon victims of what appears to be a possible serial killer begin turning up and Dave and Clete find themselves in the midst of a new mystery. Is it the Wellstones, their henchmen, a diabolical emotionally disturbed bull (a prison guard) or any number of other characters that James Lee Burke so convincingly brings to life on the pages of this novel.

This is a another great read by the poetic Mr. Burke. I cannot give the book 5 stars however due to what I believe is an overly drawn out finale. Otherwise I do not believe you will be disappointed.

James Lee Burke continues to be one of the treasures in current fiction. No one is better at evoking a sense of "being there" as JLB. Whether describing a bucolic scene in the Bitterroot Mountains or a depraved honky tonk in New Orleans, Burke has the reader feeling like he/she is really there. Burke paints word pictures that are so effective they can almost become "visually" stunning to the imaginative reader. Add that to his terrific ability to develop and flesh out characters and his intricately detailed plot lines and you have the makings of a literary lion.

Burke writes most often of the battle between good and evil...and often finds many of his characters are somewhere between the two extremes. Redemption is a common factor in his work as some characters do find redemption while others, notably Dave and Clete, are in constant search of it. Most of his "bad" characters have some goodness lurking in thier souls and many of his "good" characters fight internal battles against their own darkness. Certinly a common theme is the constant battle Dave and Clete fight against their own personal demons...Clete most often with self medication and booze and Dave with his often unsuccessful repression of his violent urges and continuing battle as a reformed alcoholic.

In "Swan Peak", Dave and Clete have gone to rural Montana for some well deserved R&R in hopes of rekindling their inner spirits after the devastation wrought by Katrina and Rita and the events in "The Big Tin Blowdown". But evil knows no geographical boundaries and our protagonists are soon deep in a number of seemingly muddling plot threads including a wealthy and arrogant family who are up to no good, a former country singer who has married one of the weatlhy Wellstone brothers but pines for her lost love and father of her child, a passle of mountain country thugs, a former prison guard hunting an escaped prisoner who almost killed him, a charlatan preacher, murdered college coeds, an inquisitive FBI operative, and perhaps a ghost out of Clete's past who may or may not have been killed in a plane crash Clete orchestrated. Whew!! Believe it or not, all these threads do ultimately intersect and unwind satisfactorily and all, in one way or another, serve as testimony to the goodness and evil in most of us.

While I missed the New Orleans and southern Lousiana settings for the Robicheaux novels, "Swan Peak" proves that the characters can fight their battles for good vs. evil in any local while battling their own inner demons that they can never escape. This novel gives more emphasis than normal to Clete and his personal battles yet, the constant, as always, is the way the "Bobbsey Twins Forever" are always there for each other physically as well as psychologically and emotionally. I know of no more complex friendship in crime fiction than that of Dave Robicheaux and Clete Purcel. This is a book and a series I continue to recommend unequivocally.

The Bobbsey Twins from Homicide, Clete and Dave, are back. In reviewing books by James Lee Burke I have consistently said that it is impossible to rank any one book since they are all so beautifully wrought. It is time to make an exception. Swan Peak is the best Dave Robicheaux yet and it is the best for several reasons.

The story is, on the surface, simple. Dave, Molly and Clete go to Montana to fish, to relax, to get away from the violence of New Orleans and New Iberia. Fat chance. People die; villains appear; justice is trampled by arrogance, cruelty and power. Dave and Clete stop fishing and go to work.

This is the most ambitious of any of Burke's books. With somewhere between eight and ten separate plots running in parallel (depending upon how you count them), the architectonics of the book are spectacular. Needless to say, the plot lines all converge in a magnificent climax involving equal parts justice and violence.

While every page is beautifully written and all of the signature Burke texture and description are there, Swan Peak manages to be the most philosophic, the most character-driven and, simultaneously, the most plot-driven of Burke's novels. The characters are as remarkable as their considered reflections and trenchant one-liners, but they play out their drama in a plot that pulses like a nail gun and has the urgency of an avalanche.

Most of all, Swan Peak features Clete and Dave in virtually every scene. Clete Purcel is one of Burke's most masterful creations and here we see and hear enough of him to fully satisfy us. And it is their story. God bless Molly, but there's little time for domesticity in Swan Peak. This is make-no-mistake-about-it crime fiction, but crime fiction with the distinctive Burke touch. We are enveloped by the smell of flowers, of earth and of water, but also with the smell of fear sweat and the coppery taste of blood. Every characteristic of every Burke novel is here, but amplified without being exaggerated. The total achievement, with its instruments, leitmotifs and final crescendo is very impressive. Some will like the political asides; some will find them distracting and, perhaps, annoying. Dave's world is beautiful in its way, but it is not always pretty, and this is Dave's view of it. The impact of Katrina will likely haunt him forever.

This is a long book, but it is not a long read. In many ways it is Burke's best. Drop whatever you're doing and read it. Now.

I have read several of James Lee Burke's books. They feature Dave Robicheaux and Clete Purcel, bosom buddies who are aging badly and trying to deal with demons from rough childhoods, Vietnam, and their work in law enforcement/private investigation. Dave is an alcoholic struggling to maintain sobriety and Clete is a hedonist with a heart of gold. Both characters slam bad guys around.

I don't rate this book as highly as the other Robicheaux novels I have read because Burke introduces brutal themes scarcely mentioned in his earlier works. Also, Swan Peak has a tangled web of characters and plots. You really need a scorecard to keep track. There's Troyce Nix, the lowest of the low, who has an implausible change of heart. There are the weird Wellstone brothers, and Jimmy Dale Greenwood, vagabond musician/victim. Another key player is Jamie Sue Wellstone, a greedy opportunist with a bubbly side. She can really sing, too. The central mystery is the murder of two college students.

You can turn this book to just about any page, pick a paragraph, and find a powerful statement about human nature. But there's something of the pompous air of a Professor Life about it.

Strongly recommended for Burke fans, and it seems that the author had his fans in mind because there are references to earlier adventures (the Sally Dio affair) that might be confusing to newcomers.

I've been a fan of Burke and Robicheaux from the jump, and part of the the draw is the stylistic approach Burke uses to flesh out his characters and settings.

In this novel, the setting is changed to Montana, where Robicheaux and his wife, accompanied by long-time buddy Clete Purcell, find themselves once again embroiled in murder, mayhem, and twisted familial psychopathy, this time revolving around the Wellstone family, a duo of physically and emotionally crippled brothers who are power brokers in the small area around Swan Peak; as well as the wife of one of the brothers, who brings her own checkered past into the equation.

There are other players in the story, leading to a complex brew: the former prison guard with a background of sexual perversity pursuing the escapee who shanked him and left him for dead; the aimlessly wandering woman who captures his heart; various thugs who work for the Wellstones; a religious charlatan; innocent kids trying to follow their faith who end up as victims.

These characters are all on courses that lead to intersection in the rugged Montana scenery, and Burke plots it very well.

Unfortunately, this time around the story bogs down in the endless and repetitive musings about each of the characters' pasts, as well as Robicheaux's history and demons.

In previous books, we've always had this aspect to the stories, and it's been handled deftly and creatively, adding to the depth of the characterizations and atmospheres of the tales. This time, I think Burke's gone overboard, and it really needlessly slows things down. Some of the charcters have overlapping or similar backgrounds, so the musings in these cases become repetitive. Others deal with similar demons -- most obviously Clete and Robicheaux -- so again there's a great deal of repetition.

There's one other aspect that's starting to become very obvious and problematic for the Robicheaux character: his age. In his musings, we read about his background in the Vietnam War, and times he spent with his Dad "in the 1940s" when he was growing up.

Well... I spent those kinds of times with MY Dad in the 1950s, and am also a Vietnam veteran, and my next birthday is my 60th. Which means Robicheaux has to be nearing 70. It's getting pretty hard to believe a character that old can be carrying on the way Robicheax and Purcell do.

Anyway, it was still an enjoyable read, if not quite up to Burke's earlier works, so I give it 3.5 stars.

I am not going to give a long description of this book as it has already been done. I think this is one of Burke's best yet! I love his writing and his description of the area. It makes you feel like you are there. I live in Louisiana and I can tell you he is dead on in how he describes south Louisiana!

New Orleans PI Clete Purcel is fishing on what he thought was a Montana state park. Two men arrive stating he is on private property, the Wellstone Ranch, owned by Texas gazillionaire oilman Ridley Wellstone. He recognizes one of them as Lyle Hobbs, former driver for the late mob boss Sally Dee, who died in a plane crash years ago. Before leaving, the Wellstone security drive over Clete's fishing gear and warn him the state pond is five miles away.

Clete, his former police partner New Iberia, Louisiana sheriff's deputy Dave Robicheaux and the latter's wife Molly are in Big Sky Country at the invitation of novelist Albert Hollister. Dave and Clete hope Montana would help them come to grips with Katrina. However, soon after the fishing incident, someone murders a University of Montana coed and her boyfriend near the cabins Albert gave to his southern visitors to use. That is followed by a violent chase out of the Fugitive TV show/movie when a Texas prison guard chases an escaped convict. Dave and Clete know they should mind their business, but neither ever could.

Changing location from Katrina wracked Louisiana to pristine Montana does not lessen the violence as nasty predators reside in both states. Clete and Dave seek R&R; in this case respite and redemption as each wonders if they could have done more during the Hurricane and its immediate aftermath. However, catching mean SOBs and rescuing innocents do not relieve the soul; friendship and love do. James Lee Burke provides a strong tale in one of the best continuing series on the market.

Harriet Klausner

Another great story by Mr. Burke. He's the best writer of popular fiction out there today. So many of the writers pale in comparison. I can't believe it's #80 on Kindle list. Wake up Kindle owners!

Don't do it Jimmy Dale, don't do it...

I won't review the story because you can read about it above, and I really don't want to know what happens in a book before I read it, but I do like reading the reader's thoughts on the book.

This was a magnificent listen (audio download). God bless James Lee Burke and Will Patton. I was a little hesitant when I read Dave was going off to Montana, wondering how Burke could pull it off, but the same beauty of language, the same craft in his writing, and the same wonderful plotting held up to even the best of the Louisiana novels. I listened to it straight through, except for a little sleep, and found my self pacing back and forth several times and rewinding many times just to listen again to Patton's gorgeous rendition of Burke's beautiful words. I rarely talk outloud to characters in a book, but I was constantly giving advice to Jimmy Dale and Nix. There was an interesting juxtaposition in this book that I haven't seen in other Burke books, the seemingly evil and despicable Nix winds up a someone you feel like rooting for...odd for Burke.

As an aside, some of the vulgarisms Clete comes up with just stun me (and I raised three teenage boys). It's Burke's knack for description in a different version. Also, lots of political swipes here that I wish would've been left out...it so jars the pace of the story, whether you agree with them or not. King, Parker, and now Burke can't seem to leave well enough alone.

Burke is a national treasure. His previous books will stand as testament to what New Orleans was pre-Katrina and I hope soon that he will re-visit New Orleans with the same love and deep lushness of description that we've come to expect. Tin Roof Blowdown was so stark and apocalyptic.

Since Mr. Burke is getting on in years, I treasure each book with such love. I wait for July as if it were Christmas.

And as for Will Patton, he should receive every single reader award that can be bestowed on him.

Geez, what a great book this was...

Where to begin to review a magnificent literary achievement. How about his perception of America is dead on. I am trying to read this slowly as he is our favorite writer. I have 80 pages to go and I am milking it, rereading passages and pages. I stand in awe of James Lee Burke's power of prose and how the intersection of characters create their fate, as one of his characters, Candace says. I feel like I have grown a more compassionate heart with each Burke book. It is amazing how a reader such as myself, may deem a character despicable, only to find compassion for them later in his books. He always encompasses the scale of good and evil. The truly good, the truly evil and those caught in between due to life and the events thrown at them. As always, the power of forgiveness runs as a red thread throughout his books. His characters and plot in this book are complex and how he manages to juggle all successfully, is beyond me. That is what makes him a great writer. His words always hit the bone.
After I finish, I am rereading "Tin Roof Blowdown" as I can't let go of his writing just yet. Every year, I reread a Burke book after finishing the new one. On the eve of this release, it felt like Christmas eve, waiting in anticipation of a new Burke book. James Lee Burke is a national treasure of our country and I feel blessed to have him in our life. I love reading his philosophy of life in every book which is always spot on. His books are the true barometer of our country's health or dysfunction and it's people, our environment and our politics.

Don't do it Jimmy Dale, don't do it...

I won't review the story because you can read about it above, and I really don't want to know what happens in a book before I read it, but I do like reading the reader's thoughts on the book.

This was a magnificent listen (audio download). God bless James Lee Burke and Will Patton. I was a little hesitant when I read Dave was going off to Montana, wondering how Burke could pull it off, but the same beauty of language, the same craft in his writing, and the same wonderful plotting held up to even the best of the Louisiana novels. I listened to it straight through, except for a little sleep, and found my self pacing back and forth several times and rewinding many times just to listen again to Patton's gorgeous rendition of Burke's beautiful words. I rarely talk outloud to characters in a book, but I was constantly giving advice to Jimmy Dale and Nix. There was an interesting juxtaposition in this book that I haven't seen in other Burke books, the seemingly evil and despicable Nix winds up a someone you feel like rooting for...odd for Burke.

As an aside, some of the vulgarisms Clete comes up with just stun me (and I raised three teenage boys). It's Burke's knack for description in a different version. Also, lots of political swipes here that I wish would've been left out...it so jars the pace of the story, whether you agree with them or not. King, Parker, and now Burke can't seem to leave well enough alone.

Burke is a national treasure. His previous books will stand as testament to what New Orleans was pre-Katrina and I hope soon that he will re-visit New Orleans with the same love and deep lushness of description that we've come to expect. Tin Roof Blowdown was so stark and apocalyptic.

Since Mr. Burke is getting on in years, I treasure each book with such love, hoping it won't be his last. I wait for July as if it were Christmas.

And as for Will Patton, he should receive every single reader award that can be bestowed on him.

Geez, what a great book this was...

(3.5 stars) Following the decimation of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, described in James Lee Burke's last novel, The Tin Roof Blowdown (Dave Robicheaux Mysteries), long-time New Iberia Parish detective Dave Robicheaux has accepted an invitation to recover emotionally on a ranch in western Montana. Robicheaux's long-time buddy Clete Purcell, who accompanies him, has not even started to recover. For Purcell, "the booze he drank and the weed he smoked and the pills he dropped didn't work anymore," and Robicheaux is desperately afraid for his friend.

Within days of their arrival in Montana, the past catches up with them. Clete Purcell runs afoul of two thugs, one of whom once worked for a Nevada gangster who was killed with his entourage when their small plane crashed in the mountains. Purcell has long been suspected of having been involved in the crash. These two thugs now work for wealthy Ridley Wellstone, who is financing a charismatic ministry operated by his young wife. Running parallel to these two plot threads is the story of Jimmy Dale Greenwood, a young man horribly abused by a "gunbull" during a two-year prison sentence. His abuser is now in the same area of Montana, near Missoula and Flathead Lake, as Jimmy Dale. In yet additional plot lines, two young college students are found tortured and murdered in the hills behind the ranch where Robicheaux and Purcell are staying, and a Hollywood producer making a film nearby, and his companion, are shot and burned at a highway rest stop. As these disparate plot threads begin to overlap and explode in violence, Robicheaux and Purcel are up to their eyeballs in the action.

Author James Lee Burke's vaunted ability to create vibrant characters and convey atmosphere through stunning descriptions is on full display here in Big Sky Country, with its fiercely independent residents and its spectacular natural resources. Despite the setting, however, the novel is extremely dark, filled with tormented, if not tortured, characters, all of whom are at the mercy of forces they cannot control. Extreme coincidence guides much of the action here, and though there are a few hints that one or two characters may, in time, set their lives in order, most "want their enemies hosed down with a flamethrower." Long biographies of the many individual characters provide their unfortunate backgrounds and suggest reasons for their violent behavior, though they do not do not explain the rare glimpses of empathy we see in some characters.

A climactic scene of non-stop action, killing, and near death experiences attempts to show the ultimate connections among the characters and the plot lines, but the author never explains how some of the characters actually extricate themselves from the critical scene. Even Dave Robicheaux, the narrator, admits, "In truth, I cannot tell you with any exactitude what happened [that night]." Somehow, after following so many damaged characters and complex plot lines for four hundred pages, I expected a little more. n Mary Whipple

Pegasus Descending: A Dave Robicheaux Novel (Dave Robicheaux)
Heaven's Prisoners
The Neon Rain: A Dave Robicheaux Novel
A Morning for Flamingos

Swan Peak is a "pseudo-sequel" to Black Cherry Blues, the Edgar Award-winning third Dave Robicheaux novel. Like that previous book, it takes place in Montana, where Robicheaux, his wife Molly and longtime friend Clete Purcel go for a fishing trip partly meant to help them escape the devastation of Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina (which was powerfully and sadly evoked in The Tin Roof Blowdown.) The fishing party are the guests of Albert Hollister, one of wealthy oil man Ridley Wellstone's many enemies, with whom Dave and Clete must soon contend after inadvertantly trespassing on his property. After being warned away by two thugs Clete is recognized by one of the men - a former associate of Mob Boss Sally Dio - as the man who engineered Dio's demise in a Montana plane crash (see Black Cherry Blues.) Things get more complicated when two college students are found murdered near Hollister's land; the emnity between Hollister and Wellstone makes the oil tycoon a possible suspect and Dave is recruited by the local authorities to help with the investigation. Meanwhile Clete becomes dangerously infatuated with Wellstone's sister-in-law, a beautiful country singer who's being stalked by a former lover who is himself on the run; he escaped from a Texas prison after nearly killing a brutally violent guard named Troyce Nix. When Nix comes to Montana in pursuit, Robicheaux first sees him at a revival meeting put on by the shady Rev. Sonny Click (who may have Wellstone connections) and immediately pegs him as a menace despite being unaware of the ex-military man's disgraceful involvement at Abu Graib. All of this might sound confusing here, but Burke combines his intertwining storylines so smoothly that it's easy to appreciate his masterfully graceful prose, as well as his poetic eye for detail in both landscape and character. Nobody writes crime novels like James Lee Burke, and Swan Peak shows he is at the peak of his considerable powers.
Also recommended: A Stranger Lies There - winner of the Malice Domestic Award for best first mystery, it features a vividly rendered desert backdrop that should please fans of James Lee Burke's colorful Montana and Louisiana settings.