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<\/a>The supernatural has always loomed large in the swamps of James Lee Burke\u2019s Iberia\u00a0Parish. Deputy Sheriff Dave Robicheaux has watched Confederate\u00a0soldiers gesture at him to join them, he\u2019s seen specters of his Vietnam journey appear before him, he\u00a0has seen evil appear in a number of forms \u2014 life doesn\u2019t pass through the swamps, it sinks in and is released from time to time.<\/p>\nIn A PRIVATE CATHEDRAL<\/em>,\u00a0author Burke has taken the supernatural up a notch to science fiction. When Dave discovers that a mafia don has given his daughter to a local populist demagogue, he can\u2019t leave it alone. He can\u2019t leave the mafioso\u2019s longtime mistress alone, either. The don doesn\u2019t suffer Dave\u2019s attention lightly. He brings in a green-scaled, hooded-eyed character who appears in a mist on a ship manned by unreleased souls, has hallucinatory powers \u2014 and moonlights as a hit man. He is the most formidable foe that Dave and his buddy Cletis, known as \u201cthe Bobbsey twins\u201d when they were on the New Orleans police force, have ever faced.<\/p>\nSet in the past, just as Helen Soileau has been appointed sheriff, the book abounds with the violence that was\u00a0de rigueur\u00a0<\/em>both at that time and in earlier books of this venerable series. Also extant is the elegant prose Burke produces, as evil manifests itself in the landscape. Dave has gone through \u201c\u2026the long night of the soul,\u201d and feels as though he is \u201c\u2026the only occupant in a cathedral in which you can hear your heartbeat echoing off the walls.\u201d\u00a0 Time and again, Dave battles this sense of \u201c\u2026being in a black box for the duration, Jason.\u201d\u00a0He rants eloquently, and frequently, as he battles his own demons\u00a0of alcoholism and violence.<\/p>\nIn fact, those personal demons are more interesting than the green one Burke has conjured up to further complicate the lives of Dave and Cletis. The strengths of a Robicheaux novel are still here. The pleasure in the book, however, depends upon your threshold for science fiction mixed in with this familiar setting. It\u2019s a literary gumbo not for all tastes.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bob Moyer has been busy, moving to a new home and doing all the other things Bob Moyer does. Including reading. Now, at last, he\u2019s found time again to write some book reviews and share his literary finds with us. Thank goodness. Reviewed by Robert P. \u00a0Moyer A PRIVATE CATHEDRAL: A Dave Robicheaux Novel. By […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[426,8,4,14],"tags":[1177,338,191],"class_list":["post-2721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-popular-fiction","category-sci-fi-fantasy","category-southern-fiction","category-thriller-suspense","tag-a-private-cathedral","tag-dave-robicheaux","tag-james-lee-burke"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2721"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2724,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2721\/revisions\/2724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/cathedral.jpg\")
<\/a>The supernatural has always loomed large in the swamps of James Lee Burke\u2019s Iberia\u00a0Parish. Deputy Sheriff Dave Robicheaux has watched Confederate\u00a0soldiers gesture at him to join them, he\u2019s seen specters of his Vietnam journey appear before him, he\u00a0has seen evil appear in a number of forms \u2014 life doesn\u2019t pass through the swamps, it sinks in and is released from time to time.<\/p>\n