posted on 21 Dec 2020

A Private Cathedral by James Lee Burke

Despite the author’s advancing age and rumours that each novel will be his last, there actually seems to be no sign that his creative juices are drying up. A Private Cathedral is the latest in the Dave Robicheaux series of novels of which I am something of an obsessive fan and this one is the last of a trilogy within the series – the others being Robicheaux  and New Iberia Blues.

Burke’s central themes have been well established for some time now – the culture and sensibilities of the American Deep South and Louisiana in particular; Dave Robicheaux’s deeply troubled but essentially sternly moral world view; the loyalty of friendship and the persistence of evil. Indeed the increasing incursion of evil into the world and its links with the ambiguously supernatural has grown incrementally as the series of books has developed and reaches something of a crescendo in A Private Cathedral.

Here, not only do the supernatural and the incarnations of evil take an early centre stage but Burke also plays with time in a way that leaves the reader always slightly uncertain about when the action is taking place. The effect is create something of a timeless zone in which a giant moral parable is playing out in front of our eyes.

Detective Robicheaux’s personal battle with his alcoholism and his frequently disastrous weakness for fatally flawed women always seem to lead him towards the roots of corruption that lurk just below the surface of Louisiana society. His equally troubled and volatile partner in the fight against man’s capacity for brutality is Clete Purcell who is, himself, an embodiment of barely contained – and always ambiguous – moral rage. When the two of them stumble on the ‘arrangement’ being made between two infamously powerful and ethically compromised families to reconcile their differences by the trafficking of a young woman, Dave and Clete are simply never going to let the issue pass – and we as readers all know that this will take us on a journey into a kind of hell on earth.

As I’ve noted before in other reviews of Burke’s books, the plots are way too complicated to easily summarise and, in any case, any unravelling of the plot will always be a spoiler of some sort, so I’m not even going to try. Suffice it to say that we are introduced very early on to one of Burke’s most extraordinary characters - the terrifying Gideon who may or may not be a lost soul wandering through time seeking recompense for his past life and doling out dreadful death along the way.

The book positively steams with latent evil and barely explicable events but I’m not really sure that Burke really keeps control of the melodrama. Spectral killers, ghostly sailing ships, women as sirens and heroes that take the concept of anti-hero to almost unbearable lengths is a heady and, at times, indigestible mix. The whole confection feels that Burke has taken us one step too far in creating a world in which ethical ambiguity is inherent in the very structure of society and violence has no limits – whether it is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ depends on who dishes it out. Death and corruption stalk the world and our only bastions against them are broken human beings clinging to a questionable moral code.  

But what saves the day as far as I’m concerned is just the quality of the writing. There really can’t be any doubt that Burke is one of Western fiction’s current great stylists – he can go from muscular and rugged, to deeply sensitive and on to lushly descriptive without you spotting the joins. There’s no doubt that the books have pace even if, as I think I detect in this one, he’s taking his foot slightly off the accelerator.

It’s a must for Robicheaux fans of course but it’s not the place to start if you’ve had no prior introduction to the world Burke has created – beginning the journey here would I suspect leave you somewhat bewildered.

 

Terry Potter

December 2020