Tag Archives: James Lee Burke

I read six of James Lee Burke’s sixteen Dave Robicheaux detective novels, until, like Miriam, I got tired of the PC sermonizing. Plus they were all the same. Haunted Vietnam veteran, etc. The recovering alcoholic part I liked. Other than some howlers about the Civil War, and since most of the books are set in southern Louisiana, a place I’ve only visited a few times, I really didn’t have a feel for their credibility. I finally crashed on the sixth one and have now burned to ash on one of his similar-tales Texas series, set in a mythical town somewhere north of Austin, which looks from the terrain descriptions to be Lampasas. Instead of the rampaging Italian mafia, we have the rampaging Chicano mafia. But why, I wonder, are his rural Texas deputies wearing campaign hats, like refugees from the Pennsylvania highway patrol? This guy is strictly for the New York trade, the folks who publish him. His mechanics are good, but his Texas is stereotypical: bigoted rednecks, etc. I’ll skip the rest. Instead, I’m going to take Miriam’s advice and try Lee Child’s Reacher series.