Passion

I just finished reading Purple Cane Road last night. This book did not end the way I expected it to. I did not think that Dave would find as much peace as he did with his mother's fate. What I did love about this book was the complexity of the Clete Purcel storyline.

There was a paragraph spoken by a crooked cop thinking of his father that stuck with me:

"It must have been grand to be around during World War II. Working people made good money and for fun went bowling and played shuffleboard in a tavern and didn't snort lines off toilet tanks; you walked a girl home from a cafe without gang bangers yelling at her from a car...Kids collected old newspapers and coat hangers and automobile tires and hauled them on their wagons down to the firehouse for the war effort.The enemy was overseas. Not in the streeets of your own city."

That's the kind of world that Dave Robicheaux loves and misses, and its a world I didn't even live in and yet love and miss. Dave is extremely nostalgic and, more than any other of the Burke novels I have read, the safe and comfortable world of his past is at risk.

It is also a good villian book, as Jonny Remetra is a bit larger than life and Gable is the asshole we all want to punch...even the deformed Micah makes the whole scene a bit surreal.