The Tin Roof Blowdown (Dave Robicheaux Mysteries (Paperback)) - Softcover

Burke, James Lee

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1416548505 ISBN 13: 9781416548508

Publisher: Pocket Books, 2008

Synopsis

In the waning days of summer, 2005, a storm with greater impact than the bomb that struck Hiroshima peels the face off southern Louisiana.

This is the gruesome reality Iberia Parish Sheriff's Detective Dave Robicheaux discovers as he is deployed to New Orleans. As James Lee Burke's new novel, The Tin Roof Blowdown, begins, Hurricane Katrina has left the commercial district and residential neighborhoods awash with looters and predators of every stripe. The power grid of the city has been destroyed, New Orleans reduced to the level of a medieval society. There is no law, no order, no sanctuary for the infirm, the helpless, and the innocent. Bodies float in the streets and lie impaled on the branches of flooded trees. In the midst of an apocalyptical nightmare, Robicheaux must find two serial rapists, a morphine-addicted priest, and a vigilante who may be more dangerous than the criminals looting the city.

In a singular style that defies genre, James Lee Burke has created a hauntingly bleak picture of life in New Orleans after Katrina. Filled with complex characters and depictions of people at both their best and worst, The Tin Roof Blowdown is not only an action-packed crime thriller, but a poignant story of courage and sacrifice that critics are already calling Burke's best work.

About this title

Review:

THE TIN ROOF BLOWDOWN is more than a crime novel; more than a literary novel even. It is a work of profound historical value and importance ... To say I enjoyed this book is an understatement ... there were moments when I wanted to put the book down, it was so painful to continue. But I couldn't. Nor, I dare say, will anyone else (Independent on Sunday)

THE TIN ROOF BLOWDOWN is the novel James Lee Burke was born to write. His imagination has always tended to the apocalyptical - but Hurricane Katrina outdid his worst inventions ... The passages describing the actual flooding are tremendously powerful but Burke also weaves a fully satisfying story into this extreme event (Evening Standard)

This New Orleans looks like Bosch and reads like Ballard ... it's worth emphasising that no 'literary' novelist has performed this task of imaginative witness to disaster yet. And none will do it half so well as Burke. ... he proves more forcefully than ever that he can dive down these mean - or drowned - streets and strike both a tragic, and epic, note (Independent)

In the US, he's often regarded as the crimewriter's crimewriter. But that was before Hurricane Katrina ripped the soul out of Burke's beloved New Orleans and inspired him to write what has to be his most gripping thriller to date ... Burke's descriptions, especially of the aftermath of the hurricane, are more vivid and powerful than any piece of reportage I've yet to come across (The Mirror)

Probably his finest novel ... it's quite an achievement to make the 16th novel in a series a personal best, but it's more than that - it stands comparison with the best of Southern fiction (Observer)

The story, about greed and murder and redemption, contains some of Burke's most brilliantly realised characters ... a compelling and moving narrative, punctuated by his devastating descriptions of the ravaged city (Sunday Telegraph)

You feel guilty for enjoying it so much ... a great piece of art has come out of human trouble ... it is his greatest novel (Boyd Hilton Simon Mayo Book Club)

A beautifully written howl of rage and pain over the disaster - social, political, human - that was Hurricane Katrina ... Burke has crafted a killer mystery and a passionate tribute to to his beloved New Orleans (Time Out)

THE TIN ROOF BLOWDOWN is, inevitably, sadder and angrier than previous Robicheaux novels. We always knew James Lee Burke was a master craftsman of the crime genre. This proves him to be more than that (The Times)

This crime writer wears Faulkner's mantle now (Boyd Tonkin INDEPENDENT)

Brutal, lyrical and brilliant (GUARDIAN)

James Lee Burke is one of our finest writers of crime fiction (DEADLY PLEASURES)

Book Description:

New edition of award-winner James Lee Burke's powerful crime novel set against the backdrop of Hurricane Katrina and its devastating effects on New Orleans.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pocket Books
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1416548505
• ISBN 13: 9781416548508
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 498