The Tin Roof Blowdown (Dave Robicheaux Series #16)

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Overview

HURRICANE KATRINA HAS REDUCED the Big Easy to the level of a medieval society. Now, with looters descending and violence erupting in the streets, Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Detective Dave Robicheaux combs the apocalyptic landscape for a quartet of criminals who hijacked a rescue boat from a drug-addicted ex-priest at the height of the storm, and then scooped up a gangster’s hidden fortune. In a world without order or sanctuary, revenge will come swift and easy . . . but only Robicheaux can infiltrate the shattered heart of the city he loves to forge his own kind of justice.

The Tin Roof Blowdown

Editorial Reviews

From Barnes & Noble

In post-Katrina New Orleans, Detective Dave Robicheaux is up to his knees in troubles of all kinds. Once again, James Lee Burke enmeshes his protagonist in a setting so palpably real that we almost feel like assistants in his searches.

Janet Maslin

Although The Tin Roof Blowdown describes the storm and its horrors, Mr. Burke does not dwell on their shock value. He leaves that to others and moves on to tell his own kind of story. Like the novelists who have most effectively captured the impact on New York of the World Trade Center collapse, he concentrates more intensely on his characters’ inner lives than on the havoc around them. In Mr. Burke's universe of knights and grifters the post-Hurricane Katrina days are full of opportunity. The chaos tears off the veneers of civilized character to show what these people are really made of.
—The New York Times

More Reviews (5) Fewer Reviews

Marilyn Stasio

If I'd been asked to bet on who'd write the definitive crime novel about Hurricane Katrina and the devastation of New Orleans, my money would have been on James Lee Burke. And that's just what he delivers in The Tin Roof Blowdown, a hard-boiled cops-and-robbers yarn that puts a human face on anonymous acts of good and evil in the chaos and horror of this natural disaster and its manmade aftermath.
—The New York Times Book Review

Patrick Anderson

The Tin Roof Blowdown may be Burke's most ambitious novel because he places this crime story against the backdrop of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, with emphasis not just on the forces of nature but also on the even more shocking damage caused by human greed and violence, by racial hate and by political cynicism and bureaucratic indifference…The crime story is as solid and well-written as we have come to expect from the prolific Burke, but it's ground we've covered before. What's dramatically new in the novel is the portrait of the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, both in New Orleans and in nearby New Iberia, where Robicheaux lives and works as a detective (and where Burke lives, too). Burke, one of the most lyrical of crime writers, invests the onrushing hurricane with a terrible beauty: "To the south, a long black hump begins to gather itself on the earth's rim, swelling out of the water like an enormous whale, extending itself all across the horizon. You cannot believe what you are watching." A little later, he reports that "the entire city, within one night, has been reduced to the technological level of the Middle Ages." Some of his descriptions of the sights and smells of the flooded city are almost unreadable.
—The Washington Post

Publishers Weekly

The pain, dismay and anger brought on by the events surrounding Hurricane Katrina explodes from the pages of this new Dave Robicheaux novel. For nearly a quarter of a century, Burke has used this series, despite their dark subject matter, to show his obvious love of the land, the people and the cultures of the South and specifically New Orleans. There is a mystery for Robicheaux to solve, but it's the destruction of Burke's beloved New Orleans that resonates like thunder throughout the book. Will Patton, who has come to embody the heart and soul of Burke's weary, Southern knight, matches the author's prose in all its intensity and pain. Adept as he is at portraying the eccentric, the evil and the endearing characters found in Burke's books, it is the actor's reading of Burke's descriptive passages, whether it be a storm forming off the Louisiana coast or the shock of blood escaping from a gunshot wound, that creates a fully realized world for the listener. Patton's insightful interpretation of Burke's darkly expressive imagery makes for a rich literary experience rarely achieved in crime fiction today. Simultaneous release with the S&S hardcover (Reviews, May 21). (July)

Library Journal

In his many years of service with the New Orleans police department and the New Iberia sheriff's department, Dave Robicheaux has faced evil and danger in its many forms. But his life is about to change as New Orleans-"the city that care forgot"-is about to fall victim to a catastrophe that will dwarf all the ills that have previously beset it. As Hurricane Katrina sweeps into the city, residents who were not able to flee can't begin to know that even worse destruction will occur when the levees fail. With the city in chaos, law enforcement officers from New Iberia are called in to help restore a semblance of order. As Dave gets pulled into the turmoil, his wife and daughter are about to face their darkest hour. This is one of Burke's best and will keep listeners enthralled. Will Patton's performance makes the author's prose sing. This book is essential for all libraries, as Burke has captured in eloquent fiction an event that allowed us to see "an American city turned into Baghdad." Highly recommended.
—Theresa Connors

Kirkus Reviews

A looting and shooting at the height of Hurricane Katrina's destruction sucks Dave Robicheaux (Pegasus Descending, 2006, etc.) into New Orleans's purgatorial ordeal. After hijacking a boat from a junkie priest who was fighting to rescue a crowd trapped in a church attic by Katrina's rising waters, bail jumper Andre Rochon, together with his teenaged cousin Kevin and armed-robbery specialists Eddy and Bertrand Melancon, runs into both good fortune and bad. Breaking into florist/gangster Sidney Kovick's house, the looters find thousands in cash and a trove of blood diamonds. But when they try boosting some gas from insurance agent Otis Baylor, whose traumatized daughter Thelma recognizes them as the men who raped her after her senior prom, a single gunshot leaves one of them dead and another a helpless paraplegic, left to the mercy of the city's monumentally overburdened hospital system. Seconded from Iberia Parish to help the NOPD cope with the epidemic lawlessness, Robicheaux finds himself tangling with his eye-for-an-eye buddy Clete Purcel, Kovick's gangland establishment, scary private eye Ronald Bledsoe and the usual quota of femmes fatales and lowlifes. Apart from the operatically scaled evocation of the hurricane, a shattering portrait Burke was born to create, the most striking creation here is Bertrand Melancon, a lost soul who can't decide whether he's an avenger or a penitent.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781416548508
Publisher: Pocket Books
Publication date: 6/17/2008
Format: Mass Market Paperback
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 528
Sales rank: 168,859
Series: Dave Robicheaux Series , #16
Product dimensions: 4.20 (w) x 6.92 (h) x 1.12 (d)

Meet the Author

James Lee Burke

James Lee Burke, a rare winner of two Edgar Awards, and named Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America, is the author of thirty previous novels and two collections of short stories, including such New York Times bestsellers as The Glass Rainbow, Swan Peak, The Tin Roof Blowdown, Last Car to Elysian Fields and Rain Gods. He lives in Missoula, Montana.

Biography

In November 1999, The Atlantic Monthly -- under the headline, "Soft Boiled: Detectives Aren't What They Used to Be" -- noted an odd turn of events in the crime fiction genre: the strong-and-silent hero was on the wane, replaced instead by a bunch of chatty Cathys. "The 1990s detective can't shut up about anything. It's hard to go even a few pages without being assaulted by a confession of inner feelings." As an example, it offered James Lee Burke's Louisiana detective Dave Robicheaux, who "was in Vietnam 'in the early days of the war,' and this has left him with a sizable reservoir of musings about personal anger, which he taps frequently."

But put the aromatherapy away. Robicheaux -- Burke's best-known character and the launch of his financial success as a writer -- is no sensitive New Age guy. He's a police detective who holds his own on the mean streets of New Orleans, who faces the perils of alcoholism every day, and who supplements his work policing the Louisiana parish of New Iberia with running his bait shop on the bayou. Ropy with muscle, he can take -- and, if necessary -- throw a punch with the best of them.

Robicheaux is one of the stars of a series that started with The Neon Rain and continued with such titles as Heaven's Prisoners (turned into a 1996 movie with Alec Baldwin and Kelly Lynch), In the Electric Mist with the Confederate Dead and A Stained White Radiance. The other star is the Louisiana swamp country itself, which shimmers to life at the touch of Burke's pen. The smell of brackish water all but wafts off the page.

And in Robicheaux, Burke has created a complicated and often conflicted protagonist driven by a fierce moral code. "There is a pronounced streak of poetry in Mr. Burke's prose," The New York Times wrote in 1988. "He has the knack of combining action with reflection; he has pity for the human condition, and even his villains can have some sympathetic and redeeming qualities."

Like Robicheaux, Burke himself is a recovering alcoholic. He contributes his teenage drinking to his poor academic standing in high school, and it dogged him throughout much of his career as a writer. Even when he was sober for five years, he has said he still suffered from the same problems as an alcoholic and didn't truly find sanctuary until he joined a 12-step group.

His early days as a writer, in the 1960s, were marked by critical success that he thought meant he was on his way. But after his third novel met with so-so reviews, he only published one book for the next 15 years, supporting his family with an assortment of jobs -- teaching, social work, pipefitting. One novel, The Lost-Get Back Boogie, went unpublished for nearly a decade and was rejected roughly 100 times before finally being picked up by Louisiana State University Press. (It was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.)

Burke credits LSU Press for resurrecting his career. Three years later, when the third Robicheaux novel, Black Cherry Blues, was published, Burke was beginning to reach a wider audience. After the ninth, he launched a new crime series, this one featuring Texas Ranger-turned-lawyer Billy Bob Holland. Despite the shift from the swamps of Louisiana to the dusty streets of Deaf Smith, Texas, much is the same in Burke's new franchise. "The themes that stalk Dave Robicheaux through the swamps in James Lee Burke's Louisiana mysteries -- the arrogance of wealth, the corruption of power and the price a man must pay for the sins of his past -- trail Burke's new series hero, a country lawyer named Billy Bob Holland, out to Texas hill country," The New York Times wrote in a 1999 review of the second book in the series, Heartwood.

He now has a readership for both Robicheaux and Holland. But he has been careful not to take it for granted. In 1996, even after he had three straight books on The New York Times bestsellers list and was building a second home in New Iberia -- to match his house in Missoula -- Burke was vigilant about not letting the mantle of success rest too comfortably on his shoulders.

"By the time I was 35, I had three books published. I thought I was home free," he told People. "But that was vanity. I went a dozen years without selling a book. I couldn't sell ice water in hell."

Good To Know

When Burke is writing, he's typing blind. "I don't think up the stories," he told Publishers Weekly in 1992. "I'm convinced they're already written in the unconscious. My work is simply a day-to-day discovery. I never see more than two scenes around the corner and I don't know a book's ending until the last pages."

His college English papers earned him a string of D-minuses until he talked to his professor about what was wrong. "She said, 'Your spelling is an assault upon the eyeballs. Your penmanship makes me wish the Phoenicians had not developed the alphabet. But I couldn't give you an F because you have so much heart,'" he said in a 1996 interview with People. "Every Saturday I went with her and rewrote the essay for the week. I got a B and made the dean's list. (She) changed my life."

The 1993 publication of Two for Texas marked Burke's return to bookshelves after 11 years. Unable to sell a book after Lay Down My Sword and Shield, Burke finally broke the bad luck streak with his historical novel about the Texas Revolution of 1835. Kris Kristofferson starred in the 1998 TV movie adaptation, which aired on TNT.

1. Hometown:
  
  New Iberia, Louisiana and Missoula, Montana
1. Date of Birth:
  
  December 5, 1936
2. Place of Birth:
  
  Houston, Texas
1. Education:
  
  B.A., University of Missouri, 1959; M.A., University of Missouri, 1960
2. Website:
  
  http://www.jamesleeburke.com/

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

My worst dreams have always contained images of brown water and fields of elephant grass and the downdraft of helicopter blades. The dreams are in color but they contain no sound, not of drowned voices in the river or the explosions under the hooches in the village we burned or the thropping of the Jolly Green and the gunships coming low and flat across the canopy, like insects pasted against a molten sun.

In the dream I lie on a poncho liner, dehydrated with blood expander, my upper thigh and side torn by wounds that could have been put there by wolves. I am convinced I will die unless I receive plasma back at battalion aid. Next to me lies a Negro corporal, wearing only his trousers and boots, his skin coal-black, his torso split open like a gaping red zipper from his armpit down to his groin, the damage to his body so grievous, traumatic, and terrible to see or touch he doesn't understand what has happened to him.

"I got the spins, Loot. How I look?" he says.

"We've got the million-dollar ticket, Doo-doo. We're Freedom Bird bound," I reply.

His face is crisscrossed with sweat, his mouth as glossy and bright as freshly applied lipstick when he tries to smile.

The Jolly Green loads up and lifts off, with Doo-doo and twelve other wounded on board. I stare upward at its strange rectangular shape, its blades whirling against a lavender sky, and secretly I resent the fact that I and others are left behind to wait on the slick and the chance that serious numbers of NVA are coming through the grass. Then I witness the most bizarre and cruel and seemingly unfair event of my entire life.

As the Jolly Green climbs above the river and turns toward the China Sea, a solitary RPG streaks at a forty-five-degree angle from the canopy below and explodes inside the bay. The ship shudders once and cracks in half, its fuel tanks blooming into an enormous orange fireball. The wounded on board are coated with flame as they plummet downward toward the water.

Their lives are taken incrementally - by flying shrapnel and bullets, by liquid flame on their skin, and by drowning in a river. In effect, they are forced to die three times. A medieval torturer could not have devised a more diabolic fate.

When I wake from the dream, I have to sit for a long time on the side of the bed, my arms clenched across my chest, as though I've caught a chill or the malarial mosquito is once again having its way with my metabolism. I assure myself that the dream is only a dream, that if it were real I would have heard sounds and not simply seen images that are the stuff of history now and are not considered of interest by those who are determined to re-create them.

I also tell myself that the past is a decaying memory and that I do not have to relive and empower it unless I choose to do so. As a recovering drunk, I know I cannot allow myself the luxury of resenting my government for lying to a whole generation of young men and women who believed they were serving a noble cause. Nor can I resent those who treated us as oddities if not pariahs when we returned home.

When I go back to sleep, I once again tell myself I will never again have to witness the wide-scale suffering of innocent civilians, nor the betrayal and abandonment of our countrymen when they need us most.

But that was before Katrina. That was before a storm with greater impact than the bomb blast that struck Hiroshima peeled the face off southern Louisiana. That was before one of the most beautiful cities in the Western Hemisphere was killed three times, and not just by the forces of nature.

Customer Reviews

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AtoZNY

Posted May 14, 2010

Vintage Burke!

Every time I read the latest Burke opus, I say "it's the best he's done" but with each new one, like vintage wine, Burke just gets better! Based on TV accounts and other writings I've seen, Burke's account of Katerina and its aftermath is as good as any and better than most! I fully recommend this one.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Blackhorse

Posted October 10, 2009

more from this reviewer

Best this Author has done--True Picture of Post Katrina New Orleans

As usual, Burke's characters are in perfect form; more so because the story unfolds in their home setting of New Orleans. The plot is complicated and leads the reader to an unexpected ending. If you are new to Burke, you will find it a little more graphic depiction of murder, crime and the lives of two very unusual lead characters. The treat in this story is the realistic depiction of the condition of New Orleans and the absolute poverty and misery of the City's inhabitants following the destructive results of Katrina. Great Read!

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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HeidiDew

Posted March 11, 2010

The novel to read about Hurricane Katrina

James Lee Burke fans will love following Dave Robicheaux through the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Who better than Burke to walk us through the idiosyncrasies of New Orleans and that city's dealings with the insurance industry?

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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arkie23

Posted October 12, 2009

more from this reviewer

Good story

Good characters and was a good fictional account of Katrina events.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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pellen

Posted September 5, 2009

Great author

We love this series and are listening to or reading them all.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted August 1, 2009

Very insightful

This book provides a realistice feel of New Orleans and Louisiana following Katrina. It is great reading.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted July 5, 2009

ATTENTION

I think the book was thrilling.It was really kepping a grasp on me.Although it took me a while to get in to it... it turned out very interesting.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted February 17, 2009

Tough Talk and Solid Writing

This is a burly, well-written book, and a welcome addition to the Robicheaux series. It persuasively and compassionately depicts the terrifying situation in NOLA following hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Difficult issues such as racism are handled with sensitivity. Characters are distinctive and colorfully portrayed with minimal verbiage. Rewarding reading.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted May 27, 2008

Burke never, never mails it in!

I've read all of James Lee Burke's novels including his earlier novels which didn't attract much attention. The constant in everything of his I've read is his commitment to his craft and his reader. Unlike many of the currently sucessful 'series authors', Burke doesn't take shortcuts with characters, settings and especially not with dialogue. Each one of his books, whether a Dave Robechaux story, a Billy Bob Holland story, or a free standing story will stand on it's own without it being necessary to have read earlier installments. James Lee Burke never shortchanges his readers!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted January 16, 2008

Masterful Storytelling

Once again, Mr. Burke has set his mystery in the steamy bayous of southern Louisiana. This time the chaos and despair following Hurricane Katrina are the backdrop for theft and murder. The characters are intensely portrayed, and the author manages to evoke sympathy for even the lowest of the low who show the possibility of redemption. And thank heavens the women in Detective Robicheaux's life are strong and assertive, and not a one of them needs to count on a man to rescue her! I kind of suspected what the 'lights' beneath the floodwaters might mean, and had confirmation in the powerful and mystical final passages of the book. A incredibly moving novel of the good, the evil, and the soul-damaged, by an author at the peak of his game.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted September 16, 2011

My E-copy was never legible

each chapter's first page was normal and then following pages were not legible with a magnifying glass. Other books work fine. i downloaded this one twice (paid for it twice too) and have not bought a book from B & N since. maybe it's my iPhone 4, maybe it's the book. but definitely not worth the hassle dealing with B & N IT . i could have read the whole book in the time i have spent getting it legible.
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LoveSeaStories

Posted January 27, 2011

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Will keep you Involved till the conclusion.

I thought that this book was a real page turner. The story was also a chronicle of what Katrina did to New Orleans, South Louisiana, and the suffering brought on to the people who experienced that terrible storm. It was especially real in describing how it changed their lives dramatically. This is a well written story and Mr. Burke opinions of the handling of the storm's impact are obvious; both in the narrative and in the prologue. Familiar characters and their personalities, and Dave's family are deeply involved in this fast action novel.
Overall, this story will keep you involved right up to its surprising climax.
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HBWhiteDM

Posted February 23, 2009

Supporting Characters Sink to New Lows

As a longtime fan of the Robicheaux series, I have enjoyed the author's unique descriptions of the Louisiana terrain and its people. What other author incorporates so many references to odors and fragrances in his descriptions of the scene he is setting? But the supporting characters reached despicable depths in this story. Their language, which sometimes seemed to be gratuitous filth, their actions, and their total lack of conscience, made me so hesitant to pick the book up again, that I totally lost interest.
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Anonymous

Posted September 27, 2008

Another Burke to Enjoy

Once again, tortured antihero Dave Robichaux takes the reader through the perils of a tragedy that occurred in settings as only Burke can describe. It's a sin to say it, but Burke makes catastrophe a great read.
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Anonymous

Posted September 3, 2008

Burkes Liberalism shines through

Although I have read all of his other books, I became aware early on of his political beliefs. He took a good story and made it a left wing hate Bush story in relationship to the flooding of New Orleans. Too bad.
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Anonymous

Posted November 29, 2007

A reviewer

I have enjoyed Mr. Burke's books of the past. I must say that Tin Roof is the best so far, his writings bring out the attitude and mood of the circumstance as though you the reader where entwined in the scene. This man is an American treasure, among the greatest authors I have had the pleasure to read.
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Anonymous

Posted October 25, 2007

Burke and Robicheaux Deliver Again

James Lee Burke's 'Dave Robicheaux' series has been a longtime favorite of mine. This title artfully blends the fictional world of Dave, Clete Purcel, and other returning characters with the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina. I don't know if Mr. Burke was in Louisiana at the time of the hurricane, but the graphic and detailed descriptions of events are either eyewitness accounts or a testament to Burke's mastery of the story form. I read at least thirty books a year and I would put this one in my top two or three this year.
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Anonymous

Posted December 6, 2007

As good as they come

James Lee is my all time favorite, and I have read all his books. If you do not feel you are in southern La., you've never been there. His mysteries make you feel like you are there, and are believable.
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Anonymous

Posted November 12, 2007

I love the New Orleans flavor of this book . . . . .

I don't know why it took me so long to discover this author, but I am so thankful that I did. I love the setting of New Iberia/New Orleans and the masterful way the author was able to weave the story of Dave Robicheaux throughout this sad time of hurricane Katrina. I can't wait for the next installment of Dave Robicheaux.
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Anonymous

Posted August 25, 2007

His very best.....

Others have described what actually happens in this work so I won't go into it again. All I want to say is that every word of this story has its own weight and evokes a picture or an odor or a feeling. When I started to read this book, a projector in my head began to show me a film which didn't stop until the final page. This book is absolute magic.
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The Tin Roof Blowdown (Dave Robicheaux Series #16)

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Overview

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The Tin Roof Blowdown

Editorial Reviews

From Barnes & Noble

Janet Maslin

Marilyn Stasio

Patrick Anderson

Publishers Weekly

Library Journal

Kirkus Reviews

Product Details

Meet the Author

James Lee Burke

Biography

Good To Know

Read an Excerpt

Customer Reviews

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Vintage Burke!

Best this Author has done--True Picture of Post Katrina New Orleans

The novel to read about Hurricane Katrina

Good story

Great author

Very insightful

ATTENTION

Tough Talk and Solid Writing

Burke never, never mails it in!

Masterful Storytelling

My E-copy was never legible

Will keep you Involved till the conclusion.

Supporting Characters Sink to New Lows

Another Burke to Enjoy

Burkes Liberalism shines through

A reviewer

Burke and Robicheaux Deliver Again

As good as they come

I love the New Orleans flavor of this book . . . . .

His very best.....