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Description edit
For detective Dave Robicheaux, memories -- including those of a strange and violent summer from his youth -- are best left alone. But a dying man's confession forces Robicheaux to resurrect a decades-old mystery with a missing woman at its heart. Her name may or may not have been Ida Durbin,... read more
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
Characters edit
- Dave Robicheaux: The author’s recurring homicide detective. He once worked for the New Orleans Police Department, but is currently a deputy sheriff in New Iberia, Louisiana. He is a Vietnam War veteran, and suffers from war demons and alcoholism. His first wife was murdered. His current wife, Bootsie, suffers from lupus.
- Clete Purcel: Dave Robicheaux’s best friend. Helps him out in difficult situations
Quotes edit
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“On Good Memories: "Those moments are forever inviolate, never to be shared or explained, and, like images on a Grecian urn, never subject to time and decay." ... "Why make them less by trying to recreate them?”
Dave Robicheaux -
“On Serial Killers: "I believe the causes that create them are theological in nature rather than societal. I believe they make a conscious choice to erase God's thumbprint from their souls."”
Dave Robicheaux -
“"Lie to others or lie to God and you're only human. Do it to yourself and you never wash out the stain."”
Molly to Dave
- Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
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“Lie to others or lie to God, and you’re only human. Do it to yourself and you never wash out the stain,”
Highlighted by 28 Kindle customers -
The person who believes he can rise to a position of wealth and power in the state of Louisiana and not do business with the devil probably knows nothing about the devil and even less about Louisiana.
Highlighted by 21 Kindle customers -
QUESTION: What can dumb and fearful people always be counted on to do? Answer: To try to control and manipulate everyone in their environment. Question: What is the tactic used by these same dumb people as they try to control others? Answer: They lie.
Highlighted by 17 Kindle customers -
Herodotus’ depiction of man’s greatest burden, namely, that foreknowledge of human folly never saves us from its consequences.
Highlighted by 15 Kindle customers -
Sometimes when you’re deep in Indian country, the only speeds available are full throttle and fuck it.
Highlighted by 15 Kindle customers -
Our moral failure lies in the frailty of our vision and not in our hearts. Our undoing is in our collective willingness to trust those whom we shouldn’t, those who invariably used our best instincts against us. But as a police officer I also learned long ago that justice finds us in its own time and of its own accord, and in ways we never, and I mean absolutely never, anticipate.
Highlighted by 14 Kindle customers -
“A man is what he does. Titles are a distraction created to deceive obtuse people.
Highlighted by 13 Kindle customers -
On the question of God’s nature, he used to say, “There are only two things you have to remember about Him: He has a sense of humor, and because He’s a gentleman He always keeps His word.”
Highlighted by 12 Kindle customers -
My experience with age is that it instills a degree of patience in some, leaves the virtuous spiritually unchanged, feeds the character defects in others, and brings little wisdom to any of us.
Highlighted by 12 Kindle customers -
etiolated, the freckles drained of color. She was nibbling on a piece of dry
Highlighted by 3 Kindle customers
First Sentence edit
IT WAS THE END OF AN ERA, one that I suspect historians may look upon as the last decade of American innocence.
Series & Lists edit
This is book 14 of 19 in Robicheaux. (standard series)
Preceded by Last Car to Elysian Fields, and followed by Pegasus Descending.
Authors & Contributors edit
- James Lee Burke (Author)
First Edition edit
Original Language: English
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Country: USA
Publication Date: July 12, 2005
ISBN: 0743277198
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Country: USA
Publication Date: July 12, 2005
ISBN: 0743277198
Page Count: 336
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: PS3552.U723 C78 2005
- Dewey: 813.54
Subjects edit
Popular Tags
Links to Supplemental Material edit
- Wikipedia Article on Dave Robicheaux: Once an officer for the New Orleans police department, Robicheaux constantly breaches the ethical code over the course of just about every case he works on - seemingly without consequence - and currently pursues cases in New Iberia, Louisiana as sheriff's deputy. He is a recovering alcoholic whose demons stem from his service in the Vietnam War and his impoverished difficult childhood in rural Louisiana; his mother abandoned the family (and was later murdered) and his father died in an oil rig explosion.
Books with Additional Background Information edit
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