Dixie City Jam
by James Lee Burke
List Price:
Our Price: $3.46
You Save: $4.53 (57%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: James Lee BurkeEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1995-07-10
ISBN: 0786889004
Number of pages: 512
Publisher: Hyperion
Book Reviews of Dixie City Jam
Book Review: He Gives Himself a Larger Canvas, and He Uses It
Summary: 5 Stars
"Dixie City Jam" (1994) was the eighth novel published by American author James Lee Burke in his New York Times bestselling detective Dave Robicheaux series. Like the earlier books of the series, and most of the series' works to follow, the book, a Southern noir, police procedural/mystery, is set in and around New Orleans, Louisiana, more or less home country for Burke, who was born in Houston, Texas, in 1936, and grew up on the Texas-Louisiana gulf coast.
In his previous work in this series, Burke has frequently mentioned a German submarine, sunk with all hands aboard during World War II, underwater in the Gulf of Mexico. So is the twisted wreckage of an oil rig that exploded while Robicheaux's father was working aboard: his father's body, too, is under the salt of the Gulf of Mexico, now so much in the news due to another recent oil rig explosion. In "Dixie City Jam," the buried Nazi submarine assumes central importance when Hippo Bimstone, a powerful Jewish activist from New Orleans, requests that Robicheaux, formerly of the New Orleans Police Department, now of the New Iberia Sheriff's Office, locate the sunken vessel. The beginning of Robicheaux's search is enough to draw a neo-Nazi psychopath, Will Buchalter, who insists that the Holocaust was a hoax, to town, and it seems Buchalter will stop at nothing to find the sub first. Buchalter is pretty much Burke's usual hit man/bad guy, funny-looking, homicidal, psychotic. Of course, this being a book by Burke, New Orleans wise guys soon start coming out of the woodwork too, for reasons of their own: we have here Tommie (Bobalouba) Lonighan, and the Calucci brothers, Max and Bobo. And, to be sure, Clete Purcel, Robicheaux's former partner on the New Orleans Police Department, an overweight, heavy-drinking, brawling, heavily-scarred survivor of the city's tough Irish Channel neighborhood, as are the gangsters, is around to help the detective. We'll also meet the Reverend Oswald Flat and his wife; and a mysterious nun, Sister Marie Guilbeaux, who may have more to do with Buchalter than is helpful for the detective. Then there are some good cops, such as Lucinda Bergeron, and some dirty cops, such as Nate Baxter.
Robicheaux is of Cajun ancestry, and is still reliving the nightmare of his service in Vietnam. He has a drinking problem, and a tendency to violence. In addition to working for the sheriff, he still owns and operates a boat rental and bait business, while living in the house in which he was actually born. He is assisted in the operation of his business by a black man, Batist, whom we've met before, and will see again. Robicheaux is, by this point, on his third wife, Bootsie, who has developed the generally fatal disease lupus. The detective's quietly, illegally adopted daughter, an ethnic Hispanic, whom he's named Alafair, has morphed into a fairly ordinary American teenager, and she's got her pet, the three-legged raccoon Tripod, whom we've met before and will meet again.
The novel at hand is rather longer than Burke's usual, and is shot through with discussion of New Orleans' music: Sam Philips' Memphis Sun Studios, where Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, and Jerry Lee Lewis got their starts. Jimmie Clanton's "Just a Dream" the most popular song on the jukebox in Robicheaux's salad year, 1957. And the locally- beloved Fat Man, Fats Domino. Burke also gives us a couple of pretty grotesque characters, a hallmark of Southern literature. He continues to write with energy, passion and power, and the longer length seems, if anything, to have given him a bigger canvas than usual to work upon. In fact, like Michael Connelly, the creator of a detective whom he named Hieronymus Bosch, after the great 16th century Dutch artist that used all his canvas to the corners, jamming it full of grotesque characters, Burke in this book seems to have used every inch of his larger canvas, and has himself given us some memorable grotesques.
More than anything else, seems to me, in Burke's work, we'll enjoy some of the most beautiful, knowledgeable writing ever committed to paper about the flora, fauna, geography, and human occupants of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, now so much in the news. Burke attended Southwestern Louisiana Institute; later received B. A. and M. A. degrees from the University of Missouri in 1958 and 1960 respectively. Over the years he worked as a landman for Sinclair Oil Company, a pipeliner, land surveyor, newspaper reporter, college English professor, social worker on Skid Row in Los Angeles, clerk for the Louisiana Employment Service, and instructor in the U. S. Job Corps. His work has twice been awarded an Edgar for Best Crime Novel of the Year. At least eight of his novels, including the more recent Jolie Blon's Bounce, and Purple Cane Road (Dave Robicheaux Mysteries) have been New York Times bestsellers. But "Dixie City Jam" is certainly one of the more outstanding books in this series.
Summary of Dixie City Jam
Cajun detective Dave Robicheaux matches wits with neo-Nazi psychopath Will Buchalter to find a sunken German submarine, while a Mafia war explodes in New Orleans. Reprint.Literature & Fiction Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Literature & Fiction Books
Little Womenby Louisa May Alcott
Scribner; Published: 1986-06-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.49
Price in other shops:
The Killing Groundby JACK HIGGINS
HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS LTD; Published: 2007; Hardcover; Book
Saving Fish from Drowningby Amy Tan
4th Estate; Published: 2005; Paperback; Book
Life Expectancyby Dean Koontz
Harpercollins Pb; Published: 2005-08-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.00
Constant Princessby Philippa Gregory
Touchstone/Simon & Schuster; Published: 2005; Hardcover; Book
Wolf of the Plains (Conqueror, Book 1)by Conn Iggulden
Harper; Published: 2007; Paperback; Book
Saharaby Clive Cussler
Harper Collins Pb; Published: 2005-03-21; Paperback; Book
Perelandra (Cosmic Trilogy)by C. S. Lewis
Voyager; Published: 2005-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.89
Price in other shops:
The Lord Of The Rings: Part 2 The Two Towersby J. R. R. Tolkien
Harper Collins Publishers; Published: 2001; Paperback; Book
Red Marsby Kim Stanley Robinson
Trafalgar Square; Published: 2001-06; Paperback; Book
Similar Books and other products
In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead (Dave Robicheaux)by James Lee Burke
Pocket Books; Published: 2011-10-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.59
Price in other shops:
Purple Cane Road (Dave Robicheaux Mysteries)by James Lee Burke
Dell; Published: 2001-05-08; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.12
Price in other shops:
Sunset Limited (Dave Robicheaux Mysteries)by James Lee Burke
Island Books; Published: 1999-07-06; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.70
Price in other shops:
A Morning for Flamingosby James Lee Burke
Avon; Published: 1991-08-01; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.34
Price in other shops:
Cadillac Jukebox (Dave Robicheaux Mysteries)by James Lee Burke
Hyperion; Published: 1997-08-01; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.97
Price in other shops:
BURNING ANGEL (Dave Robicheaux Mysteries)by James Lee Burke
Hyperion; Published: 1996-07-08; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.46
Price in other shops:
The Neon Rain: A Dave Robicheaux Novel (Dave Robicheaux Mysteries)by James Lee Burke
Pocket Books; Published: 2002-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.90
Price in other shops:
Heaven's Prisoners (Dave Robicheaux Mysteries)by James Lee Burke
Pocket Books; Published: 2002-11-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.55
Price in other shops:
Black Cherry Blues: A Dave Robicheaux Novelby James Lee Burke
Avon; Published: 1990-12-01; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.33
Price in other shops:
A Stained White Radiance (Dave Robicheaux)by James Lee Burke
Pocket Books; Published: 2010-11-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.90
Price in other shops: