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The Tin Roof Blowdown (Dave Robicheaux Mysteries)
Average Customer Rating:  
List Price:
$7.99
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Manufacturer: Pocket
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Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781416548508
ISBN: 1416548505
Label: Pocket
Manufacturer: Pocket
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 528
Publication Date: 2008-06-17
Publisher: Pocket
Studio: Pocket
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Editorial Reviews:
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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.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Katrina wasn't fiction
Comment: No one, no one has bothered to capture the catastrophe of Katrina in a fictional setting like Burke. His prose, as always, is beyond and above the mystery genre'. He constantly makes me stop and smile at his descriptions of both place and people. If only I could. There should be no cheap thrills in reading about the hurricane that nearly destroyed this great city, but Burke nearly pulls it off.
Ron Lealos of Don't Mean Nuthin'
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Soaked in atmosphere and full of detailed description
Comment: Set in and around New Orleans during and following destructive hurricane Katrina, the Tin Roof Blowdown is a complex piece of crime fiction. Graphic descriptions of the terror and destruction wrought by Katrina, and frequent reminders of the ineptitude of the authorities in handling the tragedy, form the backdrop as the drama unfolds. Drama involving the disappearance of a young priest, the murder of a young black rapist and an innocent black teenager with the father of the rapist's victim being accused, and somehow the involvement of organised crime.
With the NOPD overwhelmed, Detective Dave Robicheaux is called in to investigate. As he works in the company of his old friend and ex-cop Clete Purcel, Robicheaux finds his own family comes under attack form a deranged .
Soaked in atmosphere and full of detailed description, and not fearing to make political comment, this is a thoroughly involving story. Part narrated by Robicheaux, and part related in the third person, a devise which while providing the full picture of events also provides a personal view on matters, we get a clear picture of the intricacies of the plot; and such is the skill of the writer that we not only see inside Robicheaux's mind, but we can actually hear his voice when he speaks.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Don't Waste My Time
Comment: Amazon readers rate Burke very highly. In all honesty, I don't know why. What do they see of interest in New Orleans, anyway?
Tin Roof was my only experience with Burke's books - and it will be my last.
Between the dark subject matter and the crude narrative, I won't waste my money or my time!
Customer Rating:
Summary: The TinRoof Blowdown
Comment: Great story line and characters - James Lee Burke just gets better and better. His research is excellent and I should know as I live in SW LA.
Customer Rating:
Summary: "I wasn't sure New Orleans would survive."
Comment: (4.5 stars) James Lee Burke, whose Dave Robicheaux series epitomizes some of the cultural characteristics of New Orleans and its outlying parishes, reaches his peak in this novel set in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Robicheaux is a detective with the New Iberia Parish, outside of New Orleans, and he and his acquaintances, many of them well known to fans of Burke's novels, have been dramatically impacted by Katrina--those that are still alive, that is.
Artfully combining real stories and details of the Hurricane Katrina disaster with fictional, but seemingly accurate, details of several plot lines evolving from the anarchy of Katrina's wake, Burke creates a chilling and compelling novel which crosses boundaries and throws together people from all levels of New Orleans society--well-to-do suburbanites whose wealth may not all be from legitimate sources, hardworking people who have secrets, "rednecks" who feel entitled to their sometimes ill-gotten gains, and those who live on the fringes of society and feel lucky to be able to know where their next meal is coming from.
In this novel, several predators steal a small boat from a parish priest trying to hack through the roof of a church to save his parishioners, who are in the attic trying to escape the rising floodwaters. The priest, suffering from cancer and addicted to pain-killing drugs, is a long-time friend of Robicheaux and his alcoholic friend Clete Purcell, but the priest has vanished after his boat has been stolen. The boat, however, has been used later in a home invasion and robbery which has resulted in the shooting deaths of two of the perpetrators. The house, which belonged to a member of organized crime, was robbed of a stash of "blood diamonds," some cocaine, and a large amount of counterfeit money. Several neighbors, who may have witnessed the shootings, have seen "nothing." One of them is the father of a girl who was raped earlier by some of the perpetrators. Eventually, the criminals threaten Alafair, Robicheaux's adopted daughter, and Molly, Robicheaux's wife.
As the mystery and the relationships among the various characters become more complex, the violence and the body count increase. Some of the characters, including one of the "perps," elicit significant sympathy, even as justice--and payback--play out satisfactorily. Burke, as always, creates vibrant, carefully rendered descriptions, often devastatingly bleak, of the environment in which his characters must operate. In the process, he makes the personal aspects of Katrina's aftermath come alive. Well organized and well integrated with the real Katrina disaster, this novel may be Burke's most memorable creation. n Mary Whipple
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