The 22nd book in the Detective Dave Robicheaux series should have been skipped. The short version is that a serial killer in the Louisiana bayous inhabited by Robicheaux has a fixation on ritualistic murders. Detective Robicheaux, now in his 80s (like the author) is dour and grumpy about the world, but acts and performs around women one-third his age as if he were 25 years old. The book is twice as long as it should be, probably because the editor didn’t have the courage to let Burke know. But wait, there’s more.
The plot includes a secondary killer who speaks like Elmer Fudd (“I wuv ice cweam cones”), the mafia, secretive dealers in Russian nuclear weapons, New Jersey casino operators, the Knights of Templar, cartoonish Hollywood directors, mercenaries who fought in Africa, and Tarot. Any one of those facets and the book would have been untenable; together, New Iberia Blues should have been sunk in a Louisiana swamp.
James Lee Burke, when he was younger, was one of my favorite authors. Here is the 4-star review of his first book.