The Tin Roof Blowdown: A Dave Robicheaux Novel | 
| Author: James Lee Burke
Publisher: Large Print Press
Category: Book
List Price: £9.38
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Avg. Customer Rating:  100 reviews
Sales Rank: 318300
Format: Large Print
Media: Paperback
Edition: Lrg
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 638
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.5 x 1.4
ISBN: 1594132879
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781594132872
ASIN: 1594132879
Publication Date: July 29, 2008
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| Customer Reviews: Read 95 more reviews...
 The novel James Lee Burke had to write November 19, 2008
When hurricane Katrina landed in his back yard Burke couldn't afford not to write about it. He uses his single-minded cop Dave Robicheaux, in another episode of saints and sinners of the deep south, to lambast his mother country's inability to deal with the massive natural disaster.
All the usual components are there to weave another compelling, erratic tale of grey-area detective work, but this time the real story is the suffering and misery left in the wake of Katrina, and the unbelievably incompetent and down right callous response of the authorities.
Burke's credibility on his home turf of New Orleans renders the superpower government of the world's richest nation as an impotent bystander whilst human tragedy on a vast scale unfolds.
Gripping stuff and one of Burke's best.
 Missed opportunity... October 10, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This must rank as one of the great missed opportunities of the thriller genre. Burke has already written a series of thrillers set in New Orleans, starring his cop Robicheaux. Along comes Hurricane Katrina. Surely it's a slam dunk to write about that?
It all goes horribly wrong. Firstly, there is actually little description of the hurricane or its' trail of destruction - certainly nothing that would surprise anyone who saw television footage (which is everyone). Secondly, what description there is lacks the immediacy and intimacy that would bring a huge disaster down to an understandable and human scale. Thirdly, most of the book isn't even set in New Orleans.
Added to this, are the usual Burke problems. The several plotlines are long, rambling and incoherent - they meander and meet up by accident. Robicheaux himself isn't actually that interesting. Like oh-so-many American thriller characters, he has a smart, sassy, feisty daughter. And a smart, sassy, feisty wife. Yawn. Doesn't any character have a family like the shopping-in-a-golf-cart disasters we see driving around the inside of a Wal-mart? Or would that damage the potential film rights?
How did Burke manage to write about the city he clearly loves, set in the aftermath of the disaster and scandal of Katrina, and get it so wrong? Because he thought that was enough in and of itself - he failed to do the hard work to make that so
"I wasn't sure New Orleans would survive." September 22, 2008
(4.5 stars) James Lee Burke, whose Dave Robicheaux series epitomizes some of the cultural characteristics of New Orleans and its outlying parishes, reaches his peak in this novel set in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Robicheaux is a detective with the New Iberia Parish, outside of New Orleans, and he and his acquaintances, many of them well known to fans of Burke's novels, have been dramatically impacted by Katrina--those that are still alive, that is.
Artfully combining real stories and details of the Hurricane Katrina disaster with fictional, but seemingly accurate, details of several plot lines evolving from the anarchy of Katrina's wake, Burke creates a chilling and compelling novel which crosses boundaries and throws together people from all levels of New Orleans society--well-to-do suburbanites whose wealth may not all be from legitimate sources, hardworking people who have secrets, "rednecks" who feel entitled to their sometimes ill-gotten gains, and those who live on the fringes of society and feel lucky to be able to know where their next meal is coming from.
In this novel, several predators steal a small boat from a parish priest trying to hack through the roof of a church to save his parishioners, who are in the attic trying to escape the rising floodwaters. The priest, suffering from cancer and addicted to pain-killing drugs, is a long-time friend of Robicheaux and Clete Purcell, his alcoholic friend, but he has vanished after his boat has been stolen. The boat, however, has been used later in a home invasion and robbery which has resulted in the shooting deaths of two of the perpetrators. The house belonged to a member of organized crime, and a stash of "blood diamonds," some cocaine, and a large amount of counterfeit money is missing. Several neighbors, who may have witnessed the shootings, have seen "nothing." One of them is the father of a girl who was probably raped earlier by some of the perpetrators. Eventually, the criminals threaten Alafair, Robicheaux's adopted daughter, and Molly, Robicheaux's wife.
As the mystery and the relationships among the various characters become more complex, the violence and the body count increase. Some of the characters, including one of the "perps," elicit significant sympathy, even as justice--and payback--play out satisfactorily. Burke, as always, creates vibrant, carefully rendered descriptions, often devastatingly bleak, of the environment in which his characters must operate. In the process, he makes the personal aspects of Katrina's aftermath come alive. Well organized and well integrated with the real Katrina disaster, this novel is one of Burke's best creations. n Mary Whipple
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excellent September 18, 2008
I have just finished this book after the latest scare scare to hit southern USA. The story and characters are well drawn and the plot brilliant. I am now in the the process of reading the other novels in the series.
in touch with the dark side September 12, 2008
I admit to having read all of JLB's novels, but this one was a real touch on his dark side again. I dealt with the reality of the hurricane (as an insurance adjuster) but his writing on the event was more frightning as it involved real people and a place that really meant something to him. The main character too, Dave, whilst sometimes you have to say no-one is THAT unlucky, actually as an alcoholic with an anger management problem - he is probably very lucky. Well apart from hearing/seeing dead people and attracting psychopaths to his family anyway.......
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