Cadillac Jukebox (Dave Robicheaux Mysteries)

Chapter 23 has one of the best descriptive scenes I've ever read.

very good

"Your past comes back in different ways. In this case, it was in the form of Karyn LaRose, her platinum hair sweat-soaked and piled on her head, her running shorts and purple-and-gold Mike the Tiger T-shirt glued to her body like wet Kleenex... The price of a velvet black sky bursting with stars and too much champagne, a grassy levee blown with buttercups and a warm breeze off the water, I...more

"Your past comes back in different ways. In this case, it was in the form of Karyn LaRose, her platinum hair sweat-soaked and piled on her head, her running shorts and purple-and-gold Mike the Tiger T-shirt glued to her body like wet Kleenex... The price of a velvet black sky bursting with stars and too much champagne, a grassy levee blown with buttercups and a warm breeze off the water, I thought. Celibacy was not an easy virtue to take into the nocturnal hours. But guilt over an impulsive erotic moment wasn't the problem. Karyn LaRose was a woman you kept out of your thoughts if you were a married man." Robicheaux is always wrestling with his past, isn't he? Burke has juxtaposed this with the investigation of a 28-year-old Louisiana murder--a civil rights activist--and woven a pretty good story tapestry for the reader. Oh, and Clete Purcell--one of my favorite characters in modern lit--is around to ask questions like "You told Karen LaRose to peddle her bread somewhere else, though?" It's gritty, it's violent, and the way Burke describes mundane things like the smell of rain on a hot sidewalk is always superb.   hide

Nice book about the justice system in the south, racism, murder, scapegoats. Good Stuff!