A Private Cathedral is the 23rd entry in James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux series. Robicheaux, a Louisiana police detective, has spent decade fighting the good fight against the changing times and the powerful/evil men behind it.

The latest entry finds Robicheaux caught in a war between a pair of powerful families (again) and, bizarrely enough, a time travelling assassin. With Clete Purcell by his side, Robicheaux cuts a swatch of destruction through south Louisiana as he tries to save a star-crossed teenagers from the warring families.

As a born and raised resident of south Louisiana, I love the Robicheaux series. I know the places he goes and the people he interacts with. I can place myself in the books. They’re immersive for me.

My Thoughts
That being said, with Robicheaux being a Vietnam era vet, the longer the series goes on the harder it becomes to believe Dave and Clete as the vital “Bobbsey Twins from Homicide” that they were in the earlier books in the series. It is a problem that plagues any long running detective series.

Burke has arrived at a brilliant solution to this very problem. A Private Cathedral takes place in the past, between previous Robicheaux adventures. This a great way to keep the series going and the protagonist vital in his twilight years.

No discussion of this book would be complete without a mention of the previously mentioned time travelling assassin, Gideon Richetti. Whether Richetti is actually a time traveller, a manifestation of Dave’s Catholic guilt or his DTs, he is one of the most memorable foes in the Robicheaux canon. He gets inside of the heads of our protagonist and doesn’t let go until the final pages of the story. Richetti is sure to stick with you long after you’re done with the book.

Over the past few years, I’ve felt like Mr. Burke was trying to find a way to put Dave out to pasture for good. After reading A Private Cathedral, I feel confident that Streak is going to be fighting the good fight for years.

And that’s good new podnah.

A Private Cathedral is available now wherever you buy your books.

This was my first time reading a James Burke book. The cover and description drew me in. I didn’t realize at the time that this is book 23 of a series. Having said that it read like a complete stand-alone. I had no problems following along. It made me want to read the others in the series

Thank you to the Publisher and Netgalley for the advanced reader copy. All opinions expressed are my own.

Fans of mystery writer James Lee Burke scratched their heads when Simon & Schuster announced the latest in his long-running series featuring Detective Dave Robicheaux series. A Private Cathedral, the 23rd Robicheaux novel and Burke’s 40th overall, was to face a surprising new foe described as, er, “a time-traveling superhuman assassin.” This, coming from an author known for a brutal hyperrealism? As outlandish as it may sound, the detective’s latest case isn’t so far removed from Burke’s best work, and the unusual villain at its center is a colorful variation on the inner demons and supernatural forces that have long fueled the dark, fever visions that emerge from his bayou crime dramas.

Burke’s title evokes that sense of the unknowable; it refers to an early remark that certain tormented souls, including narrator New Orleans Detective Dave Robicheaux himself, are, “the only occupant in a cathedral in which you can hear your heartbeat echoing off the walls.” This is the lament of a man steeped in tradition and faith, but who feels abandoned in a world where evil seems to have the upper hand.

The eternal conflict plays out in the middle of old Louisiana crime families when Robicheaux tries to track down two aspiring rock musicians who have run away from their parents. This isn’t a typical family elopement; Johnny Shondell’s uncle Mark and Isolde Balangie’s father Adonis are the heads of rival Louisiana crime families. In fact, the lovers’ flight turns out to be something of a rescue mission, as the Balangie patriarch has, for some unexplainable pact, handed his daughter over to the Shondells as a sex slave. It gets more complicated when Robicheaux falls hard for Balangie’s wife, Penelope.

A Private Cathedral swims in many elements that Burke’s readers will recognize, starting with the distinct sense of place that makes New Orleans as inevitable for Burke as Los Angeles is for Raymond Chandler. Burke sets his restless characters in a vivid landscape, and when Robicheaux notes the bream rising to the surface of the water, it’s as if Louisiana’s freshwater chorus is bearing witness to human foibles. These include such regular Burke figures as the troubled woman (in this case, two of them) whose softness Robicheaux resists—at first. Naturally, there’s the detective’s longtime partner, Clete Purcell, a massive specimen who’s got his own private cathedral of torment. Finally, Robicheaux’s demons come to play, guilt and memories that have dogged him since a stint in ‘Nam and throughout his long and volatile career in law enforcement.

These elements are all familiar and comfortable, like old friends. But the time traveler is a new and formidable cog in this world, and he upsets the fragile equilibrium for both Burke’s characters and his readers. “Superhuman assassin” rather downplays what they’re up against; this is no less than a demon, who stands behind Nazis and political figures that echo current events. In Burke’s world, and the world around us, it’s clear that something has gone terribly wrong. How much of this is due to free will and how much to diabolical forces that have been in place through time immemorial. That’s what Burke and Robicheaux—and we—have to deal with. Not just that the world is at war with itself, but that each of us have to face what’s good and evil inside out own souls. A Private Cathedral may not be the best intro for those new to Burke’s world, but his fans will dive right in and ponder what has become of his flawed hero, and of us.

I read Burke, not for the horrendous crimes and violence the “two Bobbsey Twins”, Robicheaux and Purcel keep encountering, but rather because of the entertaining writing. Two imperfect heroes, who go about fighting for the underdog, truth and justice in their unorthodox fashion. Although this one about human trafficking went a little overboard with the supernatural, it fits so well into the Louisiana Cajun culture, it was bearable. Like many great series authors, Burke has developed his characters over a long line of books, and this one is best read if you know the depth of Robicheaux and Purcel that has been developed as the number of books in the series grew.

I've read every book James Lee Burke has written, so call me a solid fan. The characters -- Dave Robicheaux, his wives and daughters and his friend Clete Purcel, even the Holland family -- feel like members of my extended family.

Burke is the master of evocative prose, at least among writers about crime. Lately, it seems there's been too much of a good thing. His narratives have gotten so baroque, so florid, so feverish, that the language overshadows everything else. Characters, plot, motivations, all suffer. It's a clear case of style over substance.

In 2019's New Iberia Blues, I squirmed my restless way through, but this one was a much harder slog. Add in the largest dose of mystical horror of any of Burke's novels, and I barely made it to the end, after starting and stopping too many times to count.

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for an advance readers copy.

Once again we travel with the troubled Dave Robicheaux, sometime cop, sometime sober, always traveling between two worlds. The one we see and the one complete with myth and fantasy. The last of the trilogy, you can almost smell the human heat and deceit of this story. It’s almost a modern day Romeo and Juliet in that two rival families are fast moving to collision. It’s complex as all his novels are, full of local folklore and fantasy. A great read again. Happy reading

James Lee Burke writes as beautifully as ever, and deftly meshes the natural and supernatural. My favorite passage:. "The truth is, I wanted the world to be
enchanted, hung with mysteries and flights of the imagination. Why? Because with that belief, we become subsumed by creation and a participant in it, a living particle inside infinity. We abide in the presence of Charlemagne’s knights jingling up the road to Roncesvalles; we flee mediocrity and predictability, and we delight in the rising and setting of the sun and no longer fear death because indeed the earth abideth forever. I wanted Gideon to be real; I wanted to hear the clash of shields and Arthur pulling his sword from the rock and see Guinevere waiting on the parapet of the castle in the dawn, shrouded with a golden nimbus. Why not? It beats dining at Chuckie Cheese."

As usual, James Lee Burke has delivered yet another masterpiece with his latest, A Private Cathedral. With characters that curl the toes, a multifaceted plot full of twists and turns, and prose that flows like transcendental poetry, this one will keep you up late at night to be sure. James Lee Burke's descriptive narrative is so finely crafted that you feel as if you are the one in that pirogue on the bayou, smelling the the scents, tasting the air, hearing the sounds, Every book just gets better and better. If you aren't a fan of James lee Burke, just pick up any book in his catalog and you will be immediately. He is one of the finest authors in America, truly a legend. Keep it in E major, podna.

In A Private Cathedral, ex-cop Dave Robicheaux and his best friend Clete are trying to save teenager Isolde Balangie from abuse by Mark Shondell. But there is much more going on here.

The Balangie and Shondell families have hated each other for four hundred years. Hoping to finally end the feud, the Balangies have sent Isolde as a peace offering, and future sex slave, for the head of the Shondell family, Mark. Isolde, meanwhile, has fallen in love with young Johnny Shondell, who is Mark’s nephew.

While the plot setup has obvious ties to Romeo and Juliet, that is not why people read the Robicheaux books. The characters are definitely original and not politically correct at all. The plot meanders away from a typical thriller by including some paranormal elements. Everyone is violent—often for the most trivial reasons.

But the writing! The prose reads like poetry. The languid feeling of the bayou’s excess humidity combines with the anticipation of squeezing the best out of life before it’s too late. Fatalism oozes from A Private Cathedral’s every pore.

This is not a book to be read quickly, like most thrillers. It is meant to be savored. A single line may resonate in your thoughts for hours, even days. This is an author at the top of his form. 5 stars!

Thanks to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

“I don’t mean to tire others with this account. But everyone has a private cathedral that he earns, a special place to which he returns when the world is too much late and soon, and loss and despair come with the rising of the sun.”

“The redness of the sun seemed to dance on his face, then he looked at me in the way a man does when he knows that one day he will have his revenge and that his victim in the meantime will be powerless to defend himself or to guess the moment when the blade will fall.”

This is the 23rd book in the Dave Robicheaux series, but this book works fine as a standalone. It has a little more of the supernatural than usual. The plot involves two crime families who have been feuding for 400 years. Robicheaux and his friend Clete Purcel manage to make both families want them dead and various hitmen come after them. I found the plot engaging, although it was overly complicated, and I love the Louisiana setting of the books and both Dave and Clete. However, what matters with Burke is the writing. You’ll find out right away whether you like it or not. I generally dislike too much description in books, but I love it when he writes it: “I realized the sky had turned a gaseous green, and the air had become has heavy and dense as a barrel of wet salt, the sun buried in a solitary cloud on the horizon, blood-red and flaming orange, like the inside of a torn peach.”

I also love how he faces both good and evil in the world: “It was one of those rare moments when the ephemerality of the human condition becomes inescapable and you want to smash your watch and shed your mortal fastenings and embrace the rain and the wind and rise into the storm and become one with its destructive magnificence.” In the epilogue, we are all left facing an evil that we unfortunately know too well.

I received a free copy of the ebook from the publisher, but I listened to the audiobook borrowed from the library. As usual, I think the narrator, Will Patton, can do no wrong.

Full disclosure I have been a Burke fan for years. His New Iberia stories and his heroes Dave - Clete are like old friends who visit from time to time. So naturally I jumped at the chance to review this latest iteration. It did not disappoint. A harrowing story with a supernatural bend somehow Burke pulls it off and makes it believable. I won’t share details about the plot to not spoil anything but despite being skeptical at first, the story made sense at the end. The thing with Burke’s writing is the lyrical nature of his prose - his descriptions make you taste the po’ boy, smell the rain in the bayou and hear the Cajun music. Devoured this book and rate it excellent. Highly recommended.

A PRIVATE CATHEDRAL: A Dave Robicheaux Novel
James Lee Burke
Simon & Schuster
ISBN-13: 978-1982151683
Hardcover
Literary Thriller

James Lee Burke over the course of his Dave Robicheaux series --- of which the newly published novel, A PRIVATE CATHEDRAL, is the twenty-third --- has gradually aged Robicheaux and his best friend Clete Purcel to the point where both men are much closer to their sunset than their sunrise, possessed of the somewhat diminished physical abilities that age brings to us all. Burke, however, still has some stories to tell in the canon of his best-known creation. He accordingly sets A PRIVATE CATHEDRAL in the past in order to do so, utilizing, as is his wont, the voice of Robicheaux to tell a haunting, disturbing, and mesmerizing tale set just after the turn of this century but which ripples even further back in time.

Robicheaux during the course of A PRIVATE CATHEDRAL is dealing with his status as a widower times two as well as his constant struggle against the inner demons which constantly threaten his hard-won sobriety. It is this turmoil that has led to his status in limbo--- eventually resolved --- at the beginning of A PRIVATE CATHEDRAL with respect to his law enforcement officer. This does not prevent Robicheaux from getting in the middle of a feud which has lasted for hundreds of years between the Shondells and the Balangies, two south Louisiana crime families. The Shondells are based out of Robicheaux’s hometown of New Iberia and are, as the story opens, involved in the entertainment industry. The Balangies for their part are well-known mobsters from several generations back who hold forth from the family mansion on the north shore of Lake Ponchartrain. A Romeo and Juliet moment is occurring, notwithstanding the feud, between Johnny Shondell and Isolde Balangie, the youngest heirs of both families, whose romantic attraction shines through into their musical collaborations which harken to the days of the mid-twentieth century, thus making that which was old new again. Isolde, however, is an unwitting pawn in what is apparently an unspeakable brokered peace deal between the patriarchs of the two families. Robicheaux interjects himself into the situation but his emotional weaknesses cause him to be buffetted carnally between Isolde’s mother and her step-father’s mistress, a dangerous place to be under any circumstance and certainly when it is an organized crime figure who is being cuckolded. A mysterious assassin named Gideon Richetti is accordingly sent after Robicheaux, an individual with a bizarre appearance whose thirst for violence and death is augmented by his apparent ability to induce nightmarish hallucinations and to travel from place to place and time to time unimpeded. Purcel as always is there to help but is soon dramatically caught in the crossfire as matters play out across south Louisiana, from the streets of New Orleans to the fishing camps and stilt houses on the Gulf of Mexico, as shifting alliances and efforts at redemption make Robicheaux’s efforts to save an innocent, and his own self-worth, all but impossible.

Long time readers are aware that the Robicheaux novels have intermittently explored the fragile divide between the living and the dead to great effect. Some of the images, particularly those encountered within IN THE ELECTRIC MIST WITH CONFEDERATE DEAD or the recurrent visions which Robicheaux experiences of ghost steamboats traversing the Bayou Teche near his home in New Iberia, Louisiana are impossible to forget, even if one were inclined to do so. Burke in A PRIVATE CATHEDRAL takes things a step or three further, exploring the concept of time from a metaphysical standpoint but within the framework of a thriller firmly grounded in this world and mercifully short on explanations above Robicheaux’s pay grade. The result is a very literary one that contains --- as each of Burke’s work does --- some of his best writing to date, with strong characterization, memorable dialogue, and Burke’s always magnificent descriptive prose. Strongly recommended.

Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
© Copyright 2020, The Book Report, Inc. All rights reserved.

I haven't read any of the other books in this series. I liked Dave and Clete. They are good guys with a lot of flaws, dealing with some really reprehensible and evil people. Dave is dragged into a situation and it really turns ugly. Clete goes along with him because they are the Bobbsey Twins from Homicide. Several times it looks like one or both of them would not live to see another day. It is a good story, but very violent.

A Private Cathedral is the twenty-third in the immensely popular Dave Robicheaux series, which began in the early 1980s. James Lee Burke has been called “America’s Best Novelist” by the Denver Post, and his books have been made into movies. Lucky me, I read this one free and early; thanks go to Net Galley and Simon and Schuster for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

Fans of this series—and there are many—will recognize all of Burke’s signature elements. Set in New Iberia, Louisiana, a small working class enclave about an hour from New Orleans, we find the usual wealthy, sleazy bad guys, in this case the Shondell family and the Balangie family; their victims, ordinary people with no money that scrape by the best they can; a pair of grizzly murders; and in this instance, a case of human trafficking. There’s always a woman or two ready to fling herself into Dave’s arms, even though he and Clete are supposedly getting old, and as usual, one of the women stands on the tops of his feet before she seduces him, or vice versa. (This has got to be some sort of private joke or reference on the author’s part, because you know that a writer with this level of skill cannot be inadvertently ascribing the identical quirky behavior to all of his protagonist’s romantic interests across over three decades of a series.)

And of course, best of all perhaps, we have Dave’s fiercely loyal best friend, Clete Purcell, a man that looks “like an albino ape” and whose impulse control is even worse than Dave’s, at least most of the time. He shows up in his pink Cadillac wearing his signature porkpie hat, and I smile. I can’t help it. Clete does this to me every single time, and I’ll bet a whole lot of other readers feel just the same way.

“He was the trickster of folklore, a modern Sancho Panza, a quasi-psychotic jarhead who did two tours in Vietnam and came home with the Navy Cross and two Purple Hearts and memories he shared with no one. Few people knew the real Clete Purcel or the little boy who lived inside him, the lonely child of an alcoholic milkman who made his son kneel all night on rice grains and whipped him regularly with a razor strop…Nor did they know the NOPD patrolman who wept when he couldn’t save the child he wrapped in a blanket, ran through flames, and crashed through a second story window with, landing on top of a Dumpster...He hated evil and waged war against it everywhere he found it. I sometimes wondered if he was an archangel in disguise, one with strings of dirty smoke rising from his wings, a full-fledged participant in fighting the good fight of Saint Paul. “

My sole complaint, a key one I probably wouldn’t give any other writer a pass on, is the way the author deals with his female characters. All the women and girls are mothers, whores, lovers, or children, and in some cases more than one of the above. No woman comes into the stories on the merit of her occupation, her character, or her abilities, aside from Helen, a long-running character that is exempted by virtue or being a lesbian and androgynous in appearance. (God forbid she be gorgeous and gay, or gorgeous and straight and completely sexually uninterested in Dave.) But the fact is, Burke has been writing and publishing great novels since 1965, and now he’s an 83 year old author and it seems unfair to expect him to change direction with regard to his female characters, or to suddenly regard them as equals in all respects rather than to nurture the whole pedestal package.

Moving on.

The story commences with Dave suspended from the sheriff’s department, and he’s behaving badly, embarking on a series of “dry drunks,” a term used liberally throughout this series and that I’ve never seen or heard of anywhere else. He’s so far out of line that Clete has to reel him back, when more often it’s the reverse. A teenager named Isolde is being sold by her parents, and Dave is attempting to rescue her. But it’s a useless endeavor because there is so much money and power buffering the offenders. Meanwhile, Clete is kidnapped and hung upside down and tortured by a being that seems otherworldly to him—mostly because it is. And this is a departure for Burke, a good one, as it turns out.

Those familiar with the series and the author know that redemption is at the core of every story he writes, and given the amount of mystic imagery that appears in his prose, it isn’t a long stretch to go from imagined spiritual beings to actual ones, which is what he does here. And I can only bow in awe at a writer—even one with residual sexist attitudes—that can take a long-running, iconic series like this one, a series that has run for more than 30 years, and decide to expand it across genres now. This would be remarkable for anyone, but for an octogenarian, it’s jaw-dropping.

I also enjoy the way he develops the side character, Father Julian, who is heroic and who pursues pedophiles and brings them to justice. Way to fight stereotypes.

I love the ending.

Highly recommended to Burke’s many fans, and to new readers as well.

(include a clip of the Tribute video on YouTube by Stephen King et al.)

James Lee Burke is a fabulous writer, in the fine tradition of Southern writers. He writes detective fiction, but his roots are in southern gothic, which means his stories are about family and place and good and evil and the unrelenting presence of history. Southern Louisiana, past and present, is a major character in the Dave Robicheaux stories.

In this book, the past is literally still with us, as time gets bent around Dave and his friends, and characters from Renaissance Italy make appearances to battle cosmic evil that might, just might, have something to do with the current resident of the White House.

Setting all of that aside, it's a noir thriller in the same class as Chandler's and MacDonald's works, as hard-boiled as they come. Colorful characters, a dame or two to mess with the hero, complicated villains, and a strong supporting cast. The action sequences are well choreographed, the story is well plotted, and the story moves crisply.

This is an excellent novel, and I highly recommend it.

A new Dave Robicheaux book by James Lee Burke is always an event to be celebrated. Burke is an amazing writer who lifts what might otherwise be a simple police procedural into the realm of literature. His books are never simple; they are a meditation on good and evil, on right and wrong, and on the beauty and ultimate unfairness of life. Burke’s prose is masterful, with wonderful descriptions of the natural world, and his characters.

“A Private Cathedral” has a Shakespearean flavor to it. There are Romeo and Juliet, two young lovers from viciously opposed underworld crime families; there are aspects of the supernatural – think of Banquo’s ghost and the witches of Macbeth – there is the perennial question of good and evil; and there is the flawed nature of humanity always front and center. Dave Robicheaux is a good man, but imperfect, as are we all, but in these books his faults are always magnified. One of the glories of Shakespeare is that his characters, for the most part, are recognizably human, and so it is with Burke, especially for Dave Robicheaux.

Clete Purcell, Robicheaux’s closest friend, is involved up to his eyeballs in this book. I always think that Clete is who Dave could have been, even would have been, if not for his religious faith, and a streak of elemental goodness which saves him. Clete is Robicheaux’s failings writ large.

I have to admit to a personal dislike of the supernatural and paranormal, enough so that I was tempted to downgrade to four stars due to those elements in “A Private Cathedral.” In the end, though, I decided that it would be unfair of me to allow my personal prejudice to interfere with others’ appreciation of this book. In all other respects this was excellent and fully deserving of five stars. If you haven’t read any of the earlier books in the series I can only urge you to do so, you will be amply rewarded. In the meantime, I heartily recommend this one.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC. The opinions are my own.

Dave Robicheaux and his best friend and sidekick, Clete Purcel, find themselves in the middle of a war between two vicious crime families, the Balangies and Shondells. Teenager Isolde Balangie approaches Dave, telling him that she is being sold as a sex slave to Mark Shondell, and she needs rescuing. She is in love with Johnny Shondell, the youngest of the Shondell clan. Dave, knight-errant that he is, takes up the cause of this mobbed-up Romeo and Juliet.

Dave's penchant for getting involved with the wrong woman, in this case, women, results in making deadly enemies of both crime bosses. Enter a time-traveling assassin with the ability to induce terrifying hallucinations and other enemies bringing more mundane threats.

Only a writer of James Lee Burke's power and craftsmanship could make the plot of A Private Cathedral work. I have had a long off and on relationship with Dave Robicheaux and Clete; one that I had stepped away from because of the extreme violence. .As soon as I started reading I knew I was in for the long haul. Burke can bring the unknown territory of South Louisiana to steamy life. I know Dave and Clete's demons well. There is an entire gallery of secondary characters who are brought to vivid life, in all their frailty and in some cases, evil. The book is set not in the present day, but several years in the past, foreshadowing the times we live in today. Burke's prose is something to be savored and I highlighted many passages to revisit.

Many, many thanks to Simon and Schuster and NetGalley for an advance digital copy. The opinions are my own.

One thing that is really good to look at before you read (or request) a book, is perhaps if it's one of a series, and just what number it might be in that series. I didn't do that before I read A Private Cathedral. It's like book number twenty. Maybe twenty-one. Definitely should have looked into that first. But that being said....


You don't need to have read the previous books to get into this one. It might help. Might provide some context, but I found that I was enjoying the story and the characters even though this was the first book for me. Funny, witty and a bit melancholic, A Private Cathedral is a good one. Maybe I'll even go back and read the previous god-knows-how-many.


A Private Cathedral publishes 8.11.2020.


3/5 Stars

Published by Simon & Schuster on August 11, 2020

Like many Robicheaux novels, A Private Cathedral is a meditation on the nature of evil. Crime writers have a tendency to conceptualize evil as a force, sometimes one that has supernatural origins. James Lee Burke did that in Light of the World. He returns to the theme of evil as a force beyond human understanding in A Private Cathedral.

Dave Robicheaux tells the story as something that happened many years in the past. In the present, Robicheaux and his friend Clete Purcell contemplate the evil of white supremacists who stand guard over statues of Confederate generals and the oppression of freedom that they represent. In the past, the story opens with Robicheaux watching Johnny Shondell, Louisiana’s answer to Elvis, performing on a bandstand. Isolda Balangie, who appears to be seventeen, approaches Robicheaux because he was once a cop. She tells him that the Balangie family has hated the Shondell family for generations. Johnny Shondell is nevertheless delivering her to his Uncle Mark for reasons Robicheaux would prefer not to understand.

Robicheaux visits Marcel LaForchette in prison at LaForchette’s request. Robicheaux agrees to see him because he “wanted to believe that evil has an explainable origin, one that has nothing to do with unseen forces or even a cancerous flaw in the midst of Creation, and that even the worst of men could reclaim the light they had banished from their souls.” LaForchette, a former mob enforcer who claims to have information about the Kennedy assassination, would like Robicheaux to give him a job so he can be paroled to Louisiana. His promises of reform make Robicheaux wonder whether he might have reclaimed the light.

LaForchette used to work for the Balangie family (he claims to have been the driver on the whack of a child molester ordered by the Balangies) but when Robicheaux next hears about him, he is on parole and working for the Shondells. Two private investigators approach Robicheaux for information about the disappearance of Isolde and its possible connection to LaForchette’s release.

The investigators end up dead and dismembered, as do a good many others. Robicheaux would like to stay out of it, but he can’t abide the Balangies and Shondells using a teenage girl as currency for a deal. His friend Clete Purcell would also prefer to avoid the drama until he finds himself strung upside down as a fire is being set below his head. Purcell isn’t sure how this fits into the Balangie/Shondell situation, but he means to find out.

This sets up what seems like a typical crime story — typical for Burke, who sets his stories in the deepest depths of southern corruption and depravity — but the novel takes a twist with the introduction of a reptilian character named Gideon Richetti, who is either a time traveler or has lived through evil events in the distant past. Richetti represents enduring evil, the kind that brought us Auschwitz and Huey Long and prisoners who die from dehydration after being locked for days in a steel coffin in the Louisiana heat.

Against his better judgment (or perhaps in the absence of judgment), Robicheaux becomes involved with Isolda’s mother, Penelope Balangie, who may or may not be married to Adonis Balangie. He also becomes involved (he thinks, given that he attributes his involvement on both occasions to blackouts) with Leslie Rosenberg, a woman Adonis is keeping on the side. Other key characters include a priest who may or may not have given into his temptations and a bent cop named Carroll LeBlane.

The plot is harrowing. As was true in Light of the World, its supernatural elements might (but probably don’t) have earthly explanations. Robicheaux would like to find a rational explanation for the slave ship he keeps seeing, the one that is also in Purcell’s dreams. He would like to think there is a reason for Richetti’s knowledge of events in Robicheaux’s past that he has never shared, or for Richetti himself, who starts the novel as more snake than human but evolves the story progresses. Those explanations will be just as hard for the reader to conjure as they are for Robicheaux. Everything that troubles Robicheaux could be in his imagination because, as he acknowledges, “superstition has its origin in fear.” Robicheaux has plenty to fear, but Burke makes clear that he isn’t alone. All our problems are grounded in fear.

Burke’s point seems to be that evil has had such an ineradicable presence throughout history that it can only be explained as a force that influences good people to do bad things. The alternative, as Robicheaux ponders, is that humans are not good at all, that they are fundamentally flawed and will trip over themselves in their hurry to harm others to satisfy their own sense of superiority. “I believe that most human activity is not rational and is often aimed at self-destruction,” Robicheaux says. “I also believe that ordinary human beings will participate in horrific deeds if they are provided a ritual that will allow them to put their conscience in abeyance.” Hence the ability of humans not just to turn their back on obvious evil, but to encourage it.

One reason to read any Burke novel is to luxuriate in his prose. “Here’s the strange thing about death,” Robicheaux explains. “At a certain age it’s always with you, lurking in the shade, pulling at your ankles, whispering in your ear when you pass a crypt. But it doesn’t get your real attention until you find yourself home alone and the wind swells inside the rooms and stresses the joists and lets you know what silence and solitude are all about.”

The other reason to read Burke is that few crime writers manage to plumb the souls of their protagonists, the struggle between their flawed natures and their fundamental decency, with such depth while still telling a riveting story. A Private Cathedral is just the latest reminder of why Burke occupies a laminated position in my list of favorite crime novelists.

RECOMMENDED

This was my first time reading James Lee Burke. The cover art and description are was drew me to the book. However, once I started reading I couldn't make it past the first chapter. The writing was over-the-top wordy and just came off as arrogant. I couldn't tell if that was a trait of the character telling the story, or the author. Whichever it was, it was a huge turn off for me.