I read the first of James Lee Burke’s twenty novels featuring Dave Robicheaux The Neon Rain in July of 1990. I loved it and I have read almost every books since. I actually finished reading the latest book Light of the World back on the 14th of April, but I am just getting around to writing about it now and for most of those 16 days I’ve asked myself why am I avoiding writing about the book. The truth of the matter is that I really don’t know why except that I just thought that there was just something amiss with the book. It certainly wasn’t the descriptive writing that Burke is so well-known for, because that was still there, although this time he was describing Montana and not the Louisiana bayou. And it wasn’t that Dave and Clete Purcel were not battling some really bad villans because the main one serial killer Asa Surrette was a bad as they come and many of the other characters on both sides of the law were pretty evil, too. So what was it?? I know that at 502 pages this book is the longest of the series, and it took me a long time to get through it. Actually, it took much longer for me to get through the first half of the book than the second. Generally I think that Burke may have tried to force things a little too much, for me it seemed that there were too many bad guys, none on the level of Asa but a couple them, including one police officer came pretty close and the rich folks that Dave and Clete always run up against were no sweethearts either! Read More
