Clete: A Dave Robicheaux Novel

By James Lee Burke

Book Overview

In the latest installment in his famous Detective Dave Robicheaux series, New York Times bestselling author James Lee Burke brings Dave's partner and friend Clete Purcel to the forefront for the first time as Clete and Dave attempt to stop ruthless smugglers of a dangerous new drug

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.

Just as Clete starts to trail the culprits, Clara Bow, a woman with a dark past hires Clete as a detective to investigate her scheming, slippery ex-husband, and a string of brutal deaths all link back to a heavily tattooed man who seems to lurk around every corner. Clete is experiencing shockingly lifelike hallucinations and questioning Clara's ulterior motives when he and Dave start to hear rumors of a dangerous substance with potentially catastrophic effects. The thugs who destroyed his car might have been pawns in a scheme far darker than they could've imagined.

Gripping, violent, yet interlaced with Clete's humor and consistent drive to protect those he loves, Clete brings a fresh perspective to a truly iconic series. James Lee Burke proves yet again that he is the "heavyweight champ" and "great American novelist whose work, taken individually or as a whole, is unsurpassed" (Michael Connelly).

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802163076
• ISBN13: 9780802163073
• Release Date: June 2024
• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.0" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Very Disappointed

I always enjoy the characters of Robicheaux and Clete and their relationship to each other. I was disappointed because I was expecting more about Clete's early life, and how he became the tragic figure that he is in later life. Along the way, in this series we get hints of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, lack of education and a dysfunctional family. He already had a messed-up life before he went to Viet Nam. He has continually put himself in situations that could lead to his death, to say nothing of his excessive drinking and weight problems. I was hoping to read more about his family and how they coped as he grew into teens and early adulthood, with maybe a mystery thrown in from Clete's history that he and Dave solve. We know that Clete is of Irish descent, and that in itself tells of his forebear's likely struggle due to poverty and lack of education under rule by the Aristocratic English. (That still exists, by the way!) One just has to piece all that together through the books in the series, little-by-little and book-by-book. There are still the ghosts of slavery and Civil War that is alive and well in Louisiana in its culture and politics. That doesn't help those trying to live the best that they can no matter their color or memories and scars.

It was pretty good

A fan of Burke, read all his books, love Robicheaux, like Clete, felt this one had a lot of political overtones