Book Review: The Glass Rainbow

THE GLASS RAINBOW, Dave Robicheaux and Clete Purcell together forever? Written by James Lee Burke, read by Will Patton, reviewed by Star Lawrence

This is the 18th Robicheaux/Purcell caper—is it the last? I will get to that in a moment.

Dave, as the legions of fans know, is a mercurial cop-family man guy, who was tossed off the New Orleans PD and landed in the New Iberia, Louisiana, Sheriff’s Department. Clete is his bigger-than-life brawler of a pal, late of the NO cops, never at the Sheriff’s Department, and now sort of a freewheeling PI and world-class drinker.

These two are low-life Velcro. They find every reptilian, old-money, new-money, pimp and scoundrel rattling around Louisiana, In The Glass Rainbow, they are entangled with a creepy old oil man and his dilettante son, Kermit. Added to the mix are some young women tossed into landfills like trash and one of those celebrity criminals. You know, the kind celebrities lionize.

About then, Dave starts spotting the phantom steam paddlewheeler on his beloved Bayou Teche outside his house. And the guys in the black SUVs start to show up.

Amidst the trademark Burke nature lore, the bruised skies, the tink of raindrops, the great grand-daughter of New Orleans famed voodoo queen glances at Dave and remarks that he is “disappearin’, thinning out.”

Now, I don’t want to spoil this, but let’s say the ending is ambiguous. Dave boards the paddlewheeler, sees his long-dead parents, medics from Vietnam…Clete tries to pull him back down the gangplank.

Is this the end for our guys?

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