Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 136
 Same old formula September 4, 2008
WGK (Fairhope, AL)
1 out of 5 found this review helpful
Burke uses more metaphors than the poet laureate of the US. Frankly, it's just tiresome. After I wasted several hours reading the last Burke novel ( I had read a couple before and sort of liked them, but was afraid of them becoming the same story rehashed), I swore never to read another one, but the critics' waxing poetic over his Katrina novel broke down my resistance. What a mistake. Same old story -- Dave is plagued by demons, befriends a reformed mobster, and has to deal with an arch villain that threatens his family. Pu - leeze! If Burke were to win the Nobel prize, I'd never pick up another one of his books.
 Katrina still waits its great novel September 4, 2008
G. Mott (UK)
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
Read this book on the basis of the reviews and straight after George Pelecanos' excellent The Night Gardner but I was most disappointed. It is a series and makes few if any concessions to a newbie so characters many of which dont ring true, are thrown in at random without any sort of introduction.
The plot was fanciful with a blood diamond /Al Queda link which was most implausable and there seemed a lot of pointless too-ing fro-ing without advancing the plot. All this is interspersed with excellent, vivid descriptions of the area and the Katrina bits were good with real rage. I felt there was a really good story based around Katrina trying to get out but it was crammed into a fairly pointless and routine crime thriller. It would have been better to start with some new characters and work from there. Katrina is still waiting its great novel.
 May just be Burke's best book September 2, 2008
J. Brandt (texas)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I've read all the Dave Robicheaux books that James Lee Burke has written and this may be the best of the bunch. This time, Robicheaux and his buddy (Clete Purcel) are dealing with the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Hurricane Rita and some crimes that have been committed in the chaos of the aftermath of the hurricanes.
With any Dave Robicheaux book, the plot is detailed and there is a great deal of character development throughout the book. Burke makes the culture, the people, the geography and the region of south Louisiana come alive with a style of writing that I don't find too often.
In this book, Robicheaux has to deal with people who have taken the law into their own hands while looters may have run wild in a mobsters' home after the flood. Who has the money? Who shot people that may or may not have been innocent? I don't like to give details away when I give a review but know that the plot is detailed, but Burke will keep you interested until the very end.
Curl up with this book. You won't be disappointed.
 Gotta love Dave! September 1, 2008
J. Bryant (Danville VA)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
When Katrina hit, I knew I wanted Dave's view on what was happening. He always cuts through the bs to give the story the way it happens to real people. Good weaving of actual events with the mystery (as always)!
Hurricane Katrina August 29, 2008
S. Vopicka (Westlake Village, CA)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
One of the most haunting accounts of the effects of hurricane Katrina and the geopolitical contributions to the devastation of the storm as well as the aftermath.
Fantastic interweaving of various characters, none of them exactly what they seem
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