Swan Peak

This is another Detective Dave Robicheaux story, but this time, he’s moved out of venue. Instead of the usual Louisiana scene, Dave and his wife Molly have taken time off for the summer. They’ve gone to Montana to hunt and fish on the ranch of a friend, and they’ve taken along Clete Purcell, one of Dave’s oldest and best friends. What Burke does so well is write about seriously emotionally damaged people. Both Dave and Clete have PTSD from their Vietnam days, and Clete’s is even worse than Dave’s. Clete has not gone the way of AA, cannot keep a relationship, and his violent tendencies keep him from staying in a job. He had one been Dave’s beat partner on the New Orleans Police Department, but after losing that job due to his unrestrained violence, Clete became a PI. Dave and Molly have taken Clete to Montana, hopefully to give him a chance to clear his head, to sober up. But, it does not work out that way. Burke writes so clearly about what it’s like to have PTSD, I wonder if he is not a sufferer of that condition. He writes with equal insight into alcoholism. The other important characters in this book are psychopaths, and Burke knows them well, too. This is a story about multiple murders that take place. First the college couple is found mutilated, then the older Hollywood twosome are killed in a truck stop. There’s more, and the cast of characters is good. As the book evolves, there are really so many bad people involved, that the serial murderer could be any of them, and the identity of that person is not revealed until near the end of the book. Burke uses the book to spin some of his own philosophy. So, in an attempt to get away from trouble, of course Dave and Pete walk right into it. There is a collision of truly deranged characters with those who are only partially bent. Burke has Robicheaux think, “I’m not sure I believe in Karma, but as one looks back over the aggregate of his experience, it seems hard to deny the patterns of intersection that seem to be at work in our lives, in the same way it would be foolish to say that the attraction of metal filings to a magnet’s surface is a result of coincidence.” In describing one of the psychopaths, at the character’s funeral, Burke writes, “Quince Whitley had probably been a misogynist, if not a misanthrope, and his mourners represented elements in our cultures whose existence we either deny or whose origins we have difficulty explaining.” Finally, regarding Dave’s struggle with sobriety, this main character says, “The desire is always there – in my sleep, in the middle of a fine day, in the middle of a rainstorm. It doesn’t matter. It’s always there.” I will keep James Lee Burke in my power rotation of authors.