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Black Cherry Blues
- Narrated by: Mark Hammer
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
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A 'Blessing' Indeed!
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He's a self-described beach bum who won his houseboat in a card game. He's also a knight errant who's wary of credit cards, retirement benefits, political parties, mortgages, and television. He only works when his cash runs out, and his rule is simple: he'll help you find whatever was taken from you, as long as he can keep half.
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E.F. Bloodworth has returned to his home - a forgotten corner of Tennessee - after 20 years of roaming. The wife he walked out on has withered and faded, his three sons are grown and angry. Warren is a womanizing alcoholic, Boyd is driven by jealousy to hunt down his wife's lover, and Brady puts hexes on his enemies from his mamma's porch. Only Fleming, the old man's grandson, treats him with the respect his age commands, and sees past all the hatred to realize the way it can posion a man's soul.
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Story
Few authors write with such sheer love of story and language as T. C. Boyle, and that is nowhere more evident than in his inventive, wickedly funny, and always entertaining short stories. Here are 14 new tales previously unpublished in book form. By turns mythic and realistic, farcical and tragic, ironic and moving, Boyle's stories have mapped a wide range of human emotions. The stories here reflect his maturing themes.
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Mixed Bag
- By AuntGert on 09-22-20
By: T. C. Boyle
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Illegal
- A Novel
- By: Paul Levine
- Narrated by: Chris Andrew Ciulla
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Trial lawyer Jimmy “Royal” Payne was his own worst enemy - until now. Haunted by personal tragedy and wanted by the cops, Payne needs to skip town. What he doesn’t need is Tino Perez, a gutsy twelve-year-old Mexican boy in search of his missing - and undocumented - mother. But Payne’s ex-wife, an L.A.P.D. detective he still loves, makes him a deal: help the boy or go to jail. Soon Payne is following Tino into the darker side of the American dream.
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Great opening chapters; very vivid characters!
- By Wayne on 01-31-16
By: Paul Levine
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Burn What Will Burn
- By: C. B. McKenzie
- Narrated by: Bon Shaw
- Length: 5 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Bob Reynolds doesn't recognize the body in the creek, but he does recognize the danger of it. He's a newcomer to town, not entirely welcome and not entirely on good footing with the sheriff. So far he's kept his head down, mostly over the bar at the Crow's Nest. But he has interests other than drinking and spending his inheritance, including one that goes by the name Tammy Fay Smith and who may have caught the sheriff's eye as well.
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An Author to Check Out
- By L. O. Pardue on 07-24-16
By: C. B. McKenzie
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House of Sand and Fog
- By: Andre Dubus III
- Narrated by: Andre Dubus III, Fontaine Dollas Dubus
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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In this riveting novel of almost unbearable suspense, three fragile yet determined people become dangerously entangled in a relentlessly escalating crisis. Colonel Behrani, once a wealthy man in Iran, is now a struggling immigrant willing to bet everything he has to restore his family's dignity. Kathy Nicolo is a troubled young woman whose house is all she has left, and who refuses to let her hard-won stability slip away from her. Sheriff Lester Burdon becomes obsessed with helping her fight for justice.
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I suspect I am going to be in the minority . . .
- By BogKid on 01-12-04
By: Andre Dubus III
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The Current
- A Novel
- By: Tim Johnston
- Narrated by: Sarah Mollo-Christensen
- Length: 14 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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In the dead of winter, outside a small Minnesota town, state troopers pull two young women and their car from the icy Black Root River. One is found downriver, drowned, while the other is found at the scene - half-frozen but alive. What happened was no accident, and news of the crime awakens the community's memories of another young woman who lost her life in the same river 10 years earlier and whose killer may still live among them.
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Exceeded my expectations in every way
- By MelSA on 02-03-19
By: Tim Johnston
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Battleborn
- By: Claire Vaye Watkins
- Narrated by: Ali Ahn, Morgan Hallett, Laura Knight Keating, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Like the work of Cormac McCarthy, Denis Johnson, Richard Ford, and Annie Proulx, Battleborn represents a near-perfect confluence of sensibility and setting, and the introduction of an exceptionally powerful and original literary voice. In each of these ten unforgettable stories, Claire Vaye Watkins writes her way fearlessly into the mythology of the American West, utterly reimagining it.
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Wonderful magnificent stories beautifully told
- By Pedro Ramirez on 12-03-15
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The Ploughmen
- A Novel
- By: Kim Zupan
- Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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At the center of this searing fever-dream of a novel are two men - a killer awaiting trial and a troubled young deputy - sitting across fromeach other in the dark, talking through the bars of a county jail cell: JohnGload, so brutally adept at his craft that only now, at the age of 77, has he faced the prospect of long-term incarceration; and Valentine Millimaki, low man in the Copper County sheriff's department, who draws the overnight shift after Gload's arrest.
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Perceptive Narration
- By Abby Elvidge on 09-22-16
By: Kim Zupan
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Where is the unabridged version?
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Bought all Burkes's Audiobooks- Wish Not this one
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Difficult Engagement, Stretching Credulity
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This James Lee Burke novel, featuring Son Holland - the great-grandfather of Burke's Billy Bob Holland - as he flees a Louisiana prison camp with a Native American woman and a fellow prisoner in tow, is now available in audio.
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So Good... and a bonus! Clete is here!
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Find Her
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Sweet Home, Oregon. Detective Lacey James needs to solve her marriage problems. But with her focus on a culprit escaping after a robbery call, she’s alarmed when she discovers his getaway car hides a chilling collection of rope, gloves, zip ties, and a gun. But her success in hunting him down turns into horror when the man grabs a firearm, killing a fellow officer before himself.
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thrilling
- By Trisha C. on 10-21-22
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Where it all began.
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Vietnam vet Dave Robicheaux has turned in his detective's badge, is winning his battle against booze, and has left New Orleans with his wife for the tranquil beauty of the Louisiana bayou. But a plane crash on the Gulf brings a young girl into his life - and with her comes a netherworld of murder, deception and homegrown crime.
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Where is the unabridged version?
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The Lost Get-Back Boogie
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Released from prison after two years for manslaughter, Iry heads to Montana for a fresh start on a ranch owned by a prison buddy's father. He also hopes to nail down a song he's been working on, unable to get quite right. But soon new troubles bring tragic consequences, and it will take a lot more than a soulful tune to ease the pain.
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Bought all Burkes's Audiobooks- Wish Not this one
- By Clif on 03-09-10
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In the fall of 1863, the Union army is in control of the Mississippi river. Much of Louisiana, including New Orleans and Baton Rouge, is occupied. The Confederate army is in disarray, corrupt structures are falling apart, and enslaved men and women are beginning to glimpse freedom. When Hannah Laveau, a formerly enslaved woman working on the Lufkin plantation, is accused of murder, she goes on the run with Florence Milton, an abolitionist schoolteacher, dodging the local constable and the slavecatchers that prowl the bayous.
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Difficult Engagement, Stretching Credulity
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So Good... and a bonus! Clete is here!
- By Tim on 01-04-13
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Find Her
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- Unabridged
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Sweet Home, Oregon. Detective Lacey James needs to solve her marriage problems. But with her focus on a culprit escaping after a robbery call, she’s alarmed when she discovers his getaway car hides a chilling collection of rope, gloves, zip ties, and a gun. But her success in hunting him down turns into horror when the man grabs a firearm, killing a fellow officer before himself.
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thrilling
- By Trisha C. on 10-21-22
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Wayfaring Stranger
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It is 1934 and the Depression is bearing down when 16-year-old Weldon Avery Holland happens upon infamous criminals Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow after one of their notorious armed robberies. A confrontation with the outlaws ends as Weldon puts a bullet through the rear window of Clyde’s stolen automobile. Ten years later, Second Lieutenant Weldon Holland and his sergeant, Hershel Pine, escape certain death in the Battle of the Bulge and encounter a beautiful young woman named Rosita Lowenstein hiding in a deserted extermination camp.
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Near perfect. One of Burke's Best.
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Against the backdrop of growing civil rights turmoil in a sultry border town, the hard-drinking ex-POW attorney Hackberry Holland yields to the myriad urgings of his wife, his brother, and his so-called friends to make a bid for a congressional seat - and finds himself embroiled in the seamy world of Texas powerbrokers.
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The Publisher's Summary is Anemic
- By Cat F. on 02-25-10
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To the Bright and Shining Sun
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In this novel, Burke brings his brilliant feel for time and place to a stunning story of Appalachia in the early 1960s. Here Perry Woodson Hatfield James, a young man torn between family honor and the lure of seedy watering holes, must somehow survive the tempestuous journey from boyhood to manhood and escape the dark and atavistic heritage of the Cumberland Mountains.
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Classic!
- By Amazon Customer on 04-09-13
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The Missing Place
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Set against the backdrop of North Dakota’s oil boom, two very different mothers form an uneasy alliance to find their missing sons in this heartrending and suspenseful novel from the Edgar Award–nominated author of Garden of Stones.
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Brilliant, then boring, then downright silly...
- By karen on 01-19-15
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The Hunt Club
- A Novel (Wyatt Hunt, Book 1)
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- Unabridged
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A federal judge is murdered, found shot to death in his home - together with the body of his mistress. The crime grips San Francisco. To homicide inspector Devin Juhle, it first looks like a simple case of a wife's jealousy and rage. But Juhle's investigation reveals that the judge had powerful enemies...some of whom may have been willing to kill to prevent him from meddling in their affairs.
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The narrator sounds like a moron
- By Jacqui on 10-03-12
By: John Lescroart
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Harbor Lights
- By: James Lee Burke
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- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Harbor Lights is a story collection from one of the most popular and widely acclaimed icons of American fiction, featuring a never-before-published novella. These eight stories move from the marshlands on the Gulf of Mexico to the sweeping plains of Colorado to prisons, saloons, and trailer parks across the South, weaving together love, friendship, violence, survival, and revenge
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Virtue Signaling
- By Malandro on 01-30-24
By: James Lee Burke
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Clete
- A Dave Robicheaux Novel
- By: James Lee Burke
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- Unabridged
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Clete Purcel—private investigator, ex-member of the New Orleans Police Department, and war veteran with a hard shell and just a few soft spots—is Dave Robicheaux’s longtime friend and partner in detective work. But he has a troubled past. When Clete leaves his car at the local car wash, only to return to find it ransacked by a group of thugs tied to the drug trade from Mexican cartels to Louisiana, it feels personal—his grandniece died of a fentanyl overdose, and his fists curl when he thinks of the dealers who sold it.
By: James Lee Burke
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White Doves at Morning
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In a startling departure, James Lee Burke has written an epic story of love, hate and survival set against the tumultuous background of the Civil War and Reconstruction. At the center of the tale are James lee Burke's own ancestors, Robert Perry, who comes from the slave-owning family of wealth and privilege, and Willy Burke, born of Irish immigrants, a poor boy who is as irreverent as he is brave and decent. Despite personal and political conflicts, both men join the Confederate Army, determined not to back down.
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Where's Will?
- By Luke on 03-01-17
By: James Lee Burke
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Still Time
- A Novel
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- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
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- Unabridged
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Until John Wilson met the warm, wise woman who became his fourth wife, the object of his most intense devotion had always been the work of William Shakespeare. From his feat of memorizing Romeo and Juliet and half a dozen other plays as a student to his evangelical zeal as a professor, John's faith in the Bard has shaped his life. But now his mental powers have been diminished by dementia, and his wife has reluctantly moved him to a residential care facility.
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Dementia and Shakespeare
- By Joan Price on 05-31-16
By: Jean Hegland
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Cimarron Rose
- A Billy Bob Holland Novel, Book 1
- By: James Lee Burke
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
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Texas attorney and former Texas Ranger Billy Bob Holland has many secrets. Among them is Vernon Smother's son, Lucas, a now-teenaged boy about whom few know the truth - Lucas is really Billy Bob's illegitimate son. When Lucas is arrested for murder, Billy Bob must confront the past and serve as the boy's criminal attorney. Billy Bob knows the propensity of the town, Deaf Smith, Texas, to make scapegoats out of the innocent and to exploit and sexually use the powerless.
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Buy the other version
- By Mike on 01-27-13
By: James Lee Burke
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Half of Paradise
- By: James Lee Burke
- Narrated by: Mark Zeisler
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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In this intense, fascinating story, Burke follows the lives of three young Louisiana men, each of whom finds himself in desperate circumstances. There's Avery Broussard, the last survivor of a family of once-prosperous land owners, who has a weakness for alcohol; J.P. Winfield, a poor singer and guitar player who rises to fame as a country music star, only to be destroyed by drug addiction; and Toussaint Boudreaux, a Black longshoreman who moonlights as a heavyweight boxer.
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Excellent early Burke ruined by terrible narration
- By Bull on 12-07-13
By: James Lee Burke
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Winter at the Door
- A Lizzie Snow Mystery, Book 1
- By: Sarah Graves
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Moving from Boston to remote Bearkill, Maine, isn't homicide cop Lizzie Snow's idea of a step up. But breaking away from tragedy and personal betrayal is at least a step in the right direction. Her dead sister's fate still torments her, as does her long-missing niece's disappearance. The town is full of people who see everything, say little, and know more than they'll share with an outsider.
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Tough Police Procedural Set In Wild North Maine Woods
- By Sara on 02-16-15
By: Sarah Graves
What listeners say about Black Cherry Blues
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Geoff Rea
- 12-15-08
Fantastic
I have been a very keen reader of James Lee Burke's books for quite a long time and have enjoyed them all.I recently listened to The Tin Roof Blowdown and thought that was excellent.This book is even better,Will Paton was a fine narrator in " Blowdown " but Mark Hammer is in a class of his own here. This is a fabulous audio book and I thoroughly recommend it to all.
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43 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Anniebligh
- 11-21-08
Black Cherry Blues
For me this is one fine piece of 'storytelling. I loved it. My first contact with James Lee Burke through Black Cherry Blues, will be the first of many more. I love having a story read to me, and the reader is reading to me. It became a personal experience.. I have yet to learn if it is J L Burke's style of writing. . Engaged from start to finish with Black Cherry Blues, I look forward to either listening to or reading much more from Mr Burke.
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35 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Robert
- 12-29-08
Nice Surprise
I have yet to find a Burke novel in the Dave Robicheaux series that I haven't liked, with the exception of Jolie Blon's Bounce narrated by Mark Hammer. In that case, it wasn't the novel I disliked but the narrator. Since then I have pretty well stuck with Will Patton's narrations which are always a good listen. However, a previous review of this book favorably rated Mark Hammer and I took a chance. Hammer did a superb job on this one. Because he did so well, I downloaded A Morning for Flamingos, also narrated by Hammer. I was very pleased with that narration also. So, if you have listened to all the Will Patton versions and want to expand your horizons, try this one out. You won't be disappointed.
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30 people found this helpful
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- Ted
- 03-13-13
Poetry
Burke's work fits together like a totally fine watch... Emphasis on the "fine". This is not just a good story. Not just a character study. Not just a virtually great southern novel. It is hauntingly beautiful. You will do yourself a great favor by letting pitch-perfect Mark Hammer reveal the voices that Burke imagined. Yup.... I reeeeeeely liked it.
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20 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Joseph
- 02-14-09
Good Burke novel, good narration.
This was the first Robicheaux novel I read, and I had a little trouble catching up with some of the back story. Burke spends too much time on some parts of it, and not enough on others, so that you have an incomplete idea of the emotional relationships with some characters.
Aside from that, it's a good listen. It is set mostly outside of south Louisiana, so Burke gets to write about a place and people he hasn't overdescribed, so there is a freshness to the story. The central mystery is engaging, and to me there seemed to be a wider range of character types than in some of his works.
Good serial detective novel, well written, not overly complex but not shallow, either.
Mark Hammer narrates this, and some reviews on this and other books really take him to task. I like him, with a few exceptions. He has the slow pacing of a southerner (even though he doesn't seem to be from the south) and doesn't rush through the book. Some of his readings are weaker than others, but this seems to be one of his stronger ones.
Good Robicheaux, but probably not the best one to introduce a newcomer to the series.
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18 people found this helpful
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Overall
- rhl60
- 01-26-10
His best in my experience...
Kudos to narrator, Mark Hammer, for taking a great book and making it better with his thoughtful pacing, accent, and inflection. He makes this book sing. And Mr. Burke is on top of his form. His capacity to use the natural environment as an omnipresent counterpoint to an intriguing plot stands out. Burke's dialogue is masterful even as it serves to reveal characters of substance. Readers of this genre will not go wrong with this one.The quality of the writing sets a high bar for his contemporaries....thoroughly enjoyed it.
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9 people found this helpful
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- Jane
- 12-26-13
I felt down and depressed until the very end.
But I loved the author’s phrases and the art of his writing.
Plot: the main guy Dave is framed for a crime. He does not do strong or smart things to save himself. I was worried and feeling down during most of the book. If the hero is going to be framed, then I want a hero I can root for, feel hope for, and enjoy watching him give it to the bad guys. But this was not. However, I know many readers like this type of fiction. For me at least the ending was happy, and I really enjoyed the unique phrases and rich descriptions.
Dave is a flawed hero. He is smart, but he does reckless and careless things which get him into trouble. He also did a stupid thing which almost got him killed. And he admitted to himself how stupid it was. He wasn’t thinking. I have moments like that. Dave is a former cop, a former alcoholic going to AA meetings. He grieves for his wife who was murdered a year ago. Dave has several sensitive and loving conversations with his dead wife. These are dreams, daydreams, or his imagination. They add a nice touch, seeing his relationship with his wife’s ghost.
The group of characters are intriguing, interesting, and wonderfully developed - bad guys and good guys. Most of the good guys are flawed. I liked that.
I loved the little girl’s dialogue and her questions. I loved Dave’s relationship with her.
PHRASES:
The author used many phrases, metaphors, and similes. Many I had not heard before. Some I just liked the way he used them. They surprised and delighted me. Some examples.
Cars cross the bridge and “thump onto the road”
About a rhythm and blues singer, someone must have “rubbed a lot of pain into him” when he was young
“When the mosquitos started to boil out of the shadows.”
“Those who began each day with a nervous breakdown, people who held onto the sides of the planet with suction cups”
Girl with a swimsuit “that was tight as tin on her body”
(What does that mean? I don’t know but I liked it.)
This book won the EDGAR AWARD for best novel in 1990.
THE AUTHOR LIVES IN THE PLACES HE WRITES ABOUT.
The two main locations in this story are Louisiana and Montana. The author has homes in both of those places. I’m sure that helps his descriptions be so rich and lush. I wonder about authors who write about places they’ve never visited but instead rely on online research.
NARRATOR & SOUND EQUIPMENT PROBLEM:
Mark Hammer was excellent with his timing and interpretations. His southern accent was comfortable to listen to. I loved the way he spoke for the little girl. He gave her an attitude that touched my heart. I loved the way she said the word Dave - in such a gentle and caring way.
I think there was a problem with the sound equipment. It picked up the narrator’s breathing making it sound as if he had trouble breathing. His breaths were noisy and distracting.
Genre: mystery suspense
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8 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Glen
- 09-27-09
One of the best American writers
James Lee Burke has an uncanny way of making you see the scenes he describes in poetic depth. He understands the complexity of human character and has a loving way of seeing all humans through the eyes of compassion. He is not a stranger to human suffering, vengefulness, hatred, passion or greed. The reader is to be commended on his touching reading, especially when he refers to Alifair as "little guy".
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8 people found this helpful
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Overall
- victoria
- 08-17-09
Dandy JLB BUT
... Mark Hammer's narration doesn't hold a candle to that of Will Patton. Patton captures the lyrical quality of Burke's prose -- truly takes me to Louisiana (or, in this case, Montana).
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6 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Joe
- 02-01-09
Burke's Black Cherry Blues is a great listen
James Lee Burke weaves a story that is great for the ears. I really enjoy his style and vocabulary. It is like listening to a cajun Faulkner. His story lines may not be for everyone but he has a knack at painting pictures in your mind with his words. The setting is from Dave's earlier life.
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6 people found this helpful