Purple Cane Road: A Novel (Dave Robicheaux Mysteries)
In New Iberia, Louisiana, memories are long and dangerous, and the past  and present are seldom easy to untangle. Homicide investigator Dave Robicheaux  is trying to help Letty Labiche, a New Iberia girl on death row for killing the  man who molested her and her sister as children, when chance brings him to  Zipper Clum, a pimp and pornographer who recognizes Robicheaux secondhand  through a 30-year haze:"Robicheaux, your mama's name was Mae.... Wait, it was Guillory  before she married. That was the name she went by ... Mae Guillory. But she was  your mama," he said."What?" I said.He wet his lips uncertainly."She dealt cards and still hooked a little bit. Behind a club in Lafourche  Parish. This was maybe 1966 or '67," he said.Clete's eyes were fixed on my face. "You're in a dangerous area, sperm breath,"  he said to Zipper."They held her down in a mud puddle. They drowned her," Zipper  said.To Robicheaux, whose memories of the fun-loving Mae are few and bittersweet, the  news comes like a bolt of lightning. Though she abandoned him to the uncertain  mercies of a violent, alcoholic father, he loved her, and his desire to find her  killers--cops in the pay of the Giacano crime family, according to Clum--is  instantaneous and deeply felt. Unfortunately, Zipper Clum meets the wrong end of  a .25 automatic soon after his electrifying announcement, but his conversation  with his killer is recorded--and Mae Guillory's name comes up again.The winding trail of evidence connected to both Letty Labiche and Mae Guillory  leads Robicheaux almost immediately to Jim Gable, the New Orleans Police  Department's liaison with city hall, whose position has afforded him a number of  less-than-legal advantages. Gable also happens to be an ex-lover of Robicheaux's  wife, Bootsie--formerly the widow of Ralph Giacano. From there the web of  connections grows ever wider, and (not surprisingly) incriminates those in high  places. These include the state attorney general, a woman who, if photographic  evidence is to be trusted, was once friendly with the Labiches' parents, who  were known procurers.But ifPurple Cane Roadhas its share of corrupt powermongers, it's also  filled with beautifully rounded characters, like piano-playing governor Belmont  Pugh and hit man Johnny Remeta, whose personality slowly begins to unravel as he  gets closer to Robicheaux's daughter. The plot converges seamlessly to its  climax--the true story of what happened to Mae Robicheaux--as James Lee Burke's  trademark of uncompromising justice is brought to fruition. Like Burke's  other Robicheaux novels,Purple Cane Roadoffers a solidly satisfying  piece in the picture of a complex hero.--Barrie Trinkle