Burke Books

I received this book in a box lot on ebay and decided to give it a try. I found the author's ability to write vivid and dramatic scenes very impressive. There are enough reviews here to tell the plot of the book, so I won't go into that.
My main criticism of the book is the bland dialogue that took me right out of the historic mood that the author, otherwise, does such a great job of creating. As a historical fiction author, I have taken great pains to study 19th century language and speech, so maybe I am overly sensitive. But there were many modern words and usages that stopped me dead and were very disappointing.
That said, it appears the author is usually a mystery/crime writer, and judging from the pictures he paints with words, is a good one.
My other criticism is that the plot leans a little too far for me toward the often-taught myth that slavery was the cause of the War Between the States. I prefer seeing a little more balance - even in fiction.
Jessica James
Award-winning author
of Shades of Gray

This is a very well written novel, with lots of good Civil War history worked in, although I agree with one other reviewer here that at times the characters became "preachy stereotypes," and another who said some characters' actions were unrealistic for the society, time period, etc. But, still, I greatly enjoyed it, and I found Willie Burke to be a very engaging character - I loved his smart remarks made almost always at the worst possible moments! I also like the complicated character of Flower's white father - I kept hoping he'd become a better person and was suprised more than once by his actions, good and bad. Flower is maybe a bit too good to be true, but I still felt myself hoping for her to get through all her ordeals and make a good life for herself. It's not a romantic look at the times, like Gone With The Wind, so don't expect that "vibe," but it's got content that will make you sometimes wince, shudder, laugh or cry. Definitely worth the reading!

I listed to this book on audio cassette. The narrator, Ed Sala is a master of many voices. His voice alone makes the book worth listening to. And of course, James Lee Burke is a master of words and a master of creating a plot and story line that is intriguing and suspenseful.

A wonderful and power book to listen to that brings many aspects of the Civil War and how it effecter ordinary people.

This is simply the finest book I've ever read. Get out of the "where's Dave Robiceaux" mode quickly. Read this as a stand-alone story with great description, wonderful characters and yes.....a "cop-out" ending...but then again, where was he to go without writing a new novel...ah ha...that's a solution!

James Lee Burke Brings the beauty of the South Louisiana town of New Iberia to the reader with extreme accuracy. I live in the area and have family ties to New Iberia. Now thanks to Mr Burke I can envision what the area around Spanish Lake and where Camp Pratt was located as it was during the Civil War period each time I visit. Mr Burke also give an accurate account of the attitude of the people of the area back during that time period. I enjoyed this book very much and would recommend it to all.

I really enjoyed this book. The mobsters are so well discribed and play into the plot. The mix of the southern artistocrats and the dirty underworld makes this a fun read.

James Lee Burke in Cadillac Jukebox does an excellent job of describing the corruption in Louisiana politics that has been around for years. This book kept me on the edge of my seat wondering where it was going next. This was my second Burke book and I will be reading many more. Recommended to all. Keep them coming Mr Burke.

This is the third time that JLB has tackled the same type of story: a old murder, an old acquaintance, an old girlfriend and a boyhood friend (who is on the wrong side of the law).

The old murder involves the killing of a NAACP civil rights activist forty years ago by a KKK racist. The old acquaintance is an ex-vietnam marine (sound familiar) who became successful (came from the right side of the tracks) and is now running for Governor. The ex-girlfriend is now the politicians wife who has never forgiven Dave for dumping her. The old boyhood friend is a 'made-man' who has been playing both sides for a while and is now in trouble with everyone.

Needless to say the bad-guys get their cumuppence and the good guys win, but as always there is some collateral damage to someone near Dave. His old friend and bait shop buddy, Batist, gets stuck between a rock and a hard place, but thankfully survives.

Glenda, the Good Witch of Northern Oz, said "It's always best to start at the Beginning," but she was talking about the Yellow Brick Road. With James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux mystery and mayhem series, that ain't necessarily so, it's all Good, and the reader may start anywhere within this steamy, murkily atmospheric Southern Louisiana stories arc.

In this affair, Burke illustrates that "Some Saturday afternoon heroes will never go gently into that good night." Patrician Golden Boy and former LSU quarterback, descendent of KKK lynchmongers, Buford LaRose is running for Governor of the Great State of Louisiana. His ultra-libidinous wife, daughter of a gumball vendor to cheerleader, aspires to be First Lady. What have they to do with the 30 year old murder of a Civil Rights leader? and what about the Tim Leary flashback guru guy?

Burke as Robicheaux in the 1st person does his usual deft job of leading us through a mire of local characters, backwoods highways and bayous and, for tunes for the trip, there's that titular Cadillac Jukebox. /TundraVision, Amazon Reviewer

The regular characters of the bayou are back in this Dave Robicheaux novel as well as the usual pyscho killer.
The characters are colorful . The plot is okay.I'm not sure why the pyscho killer was hired to kill but, I never lost interest in the story. This novel is really 31/2 stars.

As I've written in previous reviews of the "Burke" novels by Andrew Vachss, I consider the first five books to be the best in the series and perhaps the finest and darkest crime fiction ever written. The later novels, however, changed drastically in scope and tone, often dragging and boring me to the point where I'd fall asleep in the middle of the story, unless there was mention of Wesley (a killer so skilled and deadly that even the government was afraid of him) and the possibility of him coming back from the dead. It's only because of the sheer quality of the earlier "Burke" novels that I've stayed with the series up to the present, hoping that Vachss would eventually return to his earlier roots and delve more deeply into the darkness of Burke's sordid world. I'm happy (actually, I'm jumping up and down and doing cartwheels) to say that the author has finally done it with his newest novel, Terminal. After ten previous books, which left me somewhat disappointed and hoping for more, I wasn't expecting a lot from this novel. Still, I had hope, and as we all know hope is a good thing, perhaps the best of things. Well, after a few pages of reading, I suddenly found myself hooked line and sinker. I couldn't put the book down, and I became overwhelmed with the same emotions of excitement and eagerness that I'd first experienced when reading Flood, Blue Belle, Hard Candy, Strega, Blossom, and Sacrifice so many years ago. This was the old Burke that I remembered, along with his chosen family in crime (Max the Silent, the Professor, Michelle, the Mole, Momma, plus Terry and Clarence) ready to take on the child predators and to bring them down in the only way Burke knows how--with extreme prejudice!

The plot of Terminal centers on a long-ago crime in which three male teenagers from wealthy families raped, tortured, and murdered a thirteen-year-old girl for the sheer fun of it. Only one other person knew that the boys had committed the crime, a dope dealer, and he'd used it to his full advantage for over thirty years, hitting the three men up for small amounts of money at different times as they eventually grew into adults and became multi-millionaires in their own right. A white supremacist who knew Burke when he was in prison comes to him with a plan of extortion in which the dope dealer, who's still alive, will help them achieve one big score by taking three million dollars from the murderers and then getting revenge for the dead girl. All of Burke's family is going to be needed for this job as they set the deal in motion and then encounter trained assassins and ex-government agents hired to kill them. Burke will have to depend on his instincts and skills to keep himself and his family alive and to finally carry out his goals of death and destruction. There's going to be a high body count before everything reaches its final conclusion.

This is a story that takes a closer look at Burke's earlier years in prison and how he managed to stay alive with the Professor's help, the white supremacist groups that are there and how they originated and what's expected of its members once they get out of jail, the return of Max the Silent (the deadliest martial artist alive) and his fight with a Thai killer sent to murder Burke, the Mole and his connection to the Israeli secret service and how they use Burke to kill a man, who also happens to be a child molester, in exchange for their help with this score, and finally how our anti-hero sets up and then takes down through insurmountable odds the men who murdered a thirteen-year-old girl so many years ago.

This Andrew Vachss reaching into the darkness of humanity's soul to tell a story that's but the tip of the iceberg to what goes on in today's society. This is certainly mankind at its cruelest and most violent state and how the lead character in Terminal achieves some measure of justice for those unable to defend themselves.

The Terminal is definitely Vachss at his best. This is why I've stayed with the series so long, praying that the author would once again write a novel that would blow me away with its intensity and violent demeanor. The author certainly knows what he's talking about and clearly understands the underbelly of society's dark side. This is a man who's a lawyer in real life and battles for the rights of children who have no one else to stand up for them. In many ways, Andrew Vachss is Burke, a shadow warrior who'll stop at nothing to protect the young and innocent. Highly recommended!!!

Ever since my wife brought me "Hard Candy" while in the hospital I have been hooked on Andrew Vachss' writing.
While many writers in this genre get tedious with their characters after a while, Vachss keeps his main man Burke refreshingly alive and different with each new novel!
I make it the top choice each year for Christmas, birthday and Father's Day when asked what I want the reply is always "See if there is a new Vachss book out there first, if so , that's what I want! I have read them all and am looking forward to his new one coming out in December 2008!
Enjoy!
Christopher J.Whedon

Vacchs' Burke books keep getting better! Like the characters themselves, the stories mature with each passing book. This one is terrific, especially the cliffhanger ending! So ... when's the next one?!

I also found this book a bit difficult to get through. Has a lot of sermonizing in it that takes away from the plot. However, I think Burke fans will love it anyway. If you haven't read the other Burke novels, it would be difficult to follow. Love the idea of what Burke and his family do to child molesters, doesn't even matter that they're running cons. Look forward to the next one.

This is the weakest of all the Burke novels. What is little more than a short story has been extended by the author, Vacchs, into a work that is 1/3 story and 2/3 polemics. I agree that abusers and destoyers of children all are of the lowest of the low in society and should be persecuted and prosecuted until they are removed from our world and locked away forever.

What I do not agree with is an author who creates a work of supposed fiction and then spends most of the work providing factual details to support his agendas. All that Vacchs says, as author, belongs in a nonficton work which should include additional information exploring Vacchs' ideas for dealing with child abusers; he has extensive knowledge and experience from which we all could benefit. But, he ought not to pack it into a so-called "novel."

I was expecting something of the caliber of Flood, which came out in 1985, and all of the subsequent novels. Terminal Burked me, blind-sided me, drawing upon Vacchs's name and reputation to entice me into entering the novel. I just wish I weren't hammered so hard by the author. Instead, I wish I would have been finessed by Burke, making the author's points through his actions.

Great book! Can't get enough of James Lee Burke's books!!!!! Once you start to read them you can't put them down.

This is the first book in the James Lee Burke series with Detective Dave Robicheaux. Takes place in New Orleans, reads like a Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler story - old fashioned, hard-boiled detective story. Rich in characters and a sense of Louisiana. Doesn't take long to read, but I highly recommend it!!

There's nothing like a James Lee Burke novel! Neon Rain is the beginning of the Dave Robicheaux series, and it is an excellent read. Burke's style is unique -- he likes to make the reader think. Nothing is ever spoonfed to us.

For example, there is this dark passage about a very bad man, the antagonist, dying from cancer, alone:

"Somewhere down inside him, he knew that his fear of death by water had always been a foolish one. Death was a rodent that ate its way inch by inch through your entrails, chewed at your liver and stomach, severed tendon from organ, until finally, when you were alone in the dark, it sat gorged and sleek next to your head, its eyes resting, its wet muzzle like a kiss, a promise whispered in the ear."

With no other description of the scene - the sterile hospital room, the nurses who lack compassion, the long nights, the brutal pain - the hopelessness of the character's situation is absolutely clear, encapsulated in this one metaphor. Death was a rodent. We have a taste of fear in our mouths that won't leave us when we put a marker in place and close the book. We know this wicked man's death was justice delivered, but we feel vulnerable to the rat ourselves. So there is some small element of conflict there as we sympathize with the dying man. Burke played on our fears, kept us intrigued to the very end, and then left us with just enough discomfort that the story will stay with us for a long time.

Burke's characters are complex, flawed, interesting. Life is messy and doesn't always treat them fairly, so my heart aches for these characters as they experience tragedies, abuses, mistakes, bad choices. But it's not just the characters that are intriguing. He knows how to make the scene come alive - literally.

I highly recommend any of James Lee Burke's novels. Neon Rain is top-notch.

James Lee Burke is not your average crime fiction writer. "The Neon Rain," the first Dave Robicheaux novel, is so full of atmosphere and real people that I felt like I was living in New Orleans while reading the book (I wasn't; I live in Northern California). Burke can describe settings like no one else I've read. The bayous are drenched in humidity; thunderstorms come alive and arc through your subconscious; even the cracks in the sidewalk cause you to mentally step over them. And his characters are so deep, so flawed, so human, that when you're introduced to them, you're almost compelled to greet them with a mental handshake.

Burke has a knack for not quite letting you guess exactly where he's taking you. In that regard, he's much like Michael Connelly and George Pelecanos. Simply put, Burke is a great writer, and Robicheaux is one of the more intriguing characters in fiction literature, joining my personal list of favorites which includes Harry Bosch, Jack Reacher, Matthew Scudder, John Corey, Nick Stefanos, Shane Scully, Mitch Rapp and Ridley Jones.

Buy it. Read it. Then do what I was forced to do. Buy the whole Robicheaux series. "The Neon Rain" will leave you no choice.

If this is the first book, of the Dave Robicheaux series you have read, then keep reading. This is the worst of the novels of this series. The others are better, oh a lot better! This one is over-the-top violent for no good reason. The rest of the series is Dave evolving into a more intelligent and clever detective, with great sensitivity to himself and humanity.

This series is SOOOOOOO good! Remember to read the titles in order, however. It is definitely a progressive series. See my review of Crusader's Cross for a general view of the series.

Once again JLB has Dave dealing with people he knew back in New Orleans and Vietnam. Again it's some one who grew up around the Mafia in NO and he dealt with when he was in NOPD. Again it's a member of the local mafia and gentry that is behind a problem that doesn't ever seem to go away (a bad upbringing and abuse of them or their mother or both).

What makes this one different is the inclusion of drugs for guns in south america and the american government involvement with both. An old friend from 'Nam shows up and gives a 'diary' to Dave which is purported to have info that will tie people in souteastern Louisiana to war crimes committed in Nicaragua. At the same time, one of the local gentry who has fallen onto hardtimes because of his involvement with a 'woman of color' is looking for a way out and big score. The big score is over use of his ancestral land for environmentally damaging industry which is nothing new in the polluted swamp-lands and marshes of the area around New Iberia.

There is also the touch of the 'supernatural' when after his friend Sonny is killed; he seems to turn up all over the area, and is seen by Alafair, Clete and Batiste. A nudge from Sonny, saves Dave's life and determines that one of the bad guys will take his own life.

There's a nice piece about Dave and Alafair, and dealing with your baby girl becoming a teenager and all that that implies to a parent. I thought he handled it very forthrightly and with honesty. Dave's as confused as to what to do as the rest of us mortals.

For me, at least, it seemed that he walzed through this one, getting ready for something big in the next.

The Dave Robicheaux novels by James Lee Burke have always had a spiritual component --see IN THE ELECTRIC MIST WITH CONFEDERATE DEAD-- but in BURNING ANGEL the supernatural darn near takes center stage with the presence of a real, honest-to-gosh no-doubt-about-it ghost. I loved the series before...now I'm really hooked.

I thought "Black Cherry Blues" was bad, until I read this one. At least "Black Cherry Blues" has an ending.

I wanted to give it zero stars but it was not one of the choices. First of all, I think James Lee Burke is a horrible writer. He tried too hard in his description of things throughout the book. Here's an example in one of the last pages:

"...his GI haircut resembles a peeled onion under the sun....."

Why bother with such description? It serves no purpose. Besides it doesn't make sense!!

The above would have been tolerable if the story is good. There are too many subplots. In the end, all the subplots do not come together, like a good mystery is supposed to.

It is the first book I have ever read (I read tons) where I did not know what happened in the end, not to mention the question to the following:

1. What is in Sonny's notebook?
2. Who is Charlie?
3. What is Moleen hiding?
4. What is the construction company trying to build, or dig up? Treasures?
5. And what is up with different people seeing Sonny alive after he has been killed?

I don't know if it's just me, but how can anybody give this book a 4 or 5-star, like some of the reviews I read. Maybe these same people can explain the book to me. Then again, I don't think I want to know. If James Lee Burke can be a best-selling author, then the standard of today's contemporary writers are dropping..........fast. Now that I am sufficiently depressed, maybe a good Agatha Cristie mystery will cheer me up.

j

I love almost everything about James Lee Burke including his prose, his characters and especially, the locations he writes about. But Burning Angel is the second book in a row where I had a problem with the plot.

As usual, Dave Robicheaux (deputy with the New Iberia Sheriff's Department) has way too much going on. First, Robicheaux runs into a "friend" who grew up in New Iberia and ended up being a Canal Street fixer in New Orleans. Sonny Boy Marsallus has dabbled in almost everything including being a Latin American mercenary and an independent working for the DEA. Marsallus thinks his life is in danger and asks Robicheaux to hold a notebook with damaging information. A plantation owner is trying to gain possession of land that his grandfather deeded to the families of former slaves. Why he wants the land is a big mystery, but the mob also seems to be involved. It is also rumored that Jean Lafitte buried treasure there. Lots of bad guys hover on the edges and there always seems to be a hit out on Robicheaux.

There were too many things going on in Burning Angel, and I had a hard time keeping them all straight. I'm ok with the the local crimes, the mob plots, and even the Viet Nam angle. But Burke gets very murky when delving into the world of clandestine operations in Latin America. Usually Burke wraps things up at the end, but there were an awful lot of loose ends hanging here. Even the epilogue wasn't much help.

Despite the plot, there is still enough in Burning Angel to keep me reading. Burke regales us not just with the beauty of Louisiana, but also her ugliness (her racism, exploitation of the environment, the mob influence, poverty, the crime, etc.). Robicheaux's new partner, Helen Soileau, is also a good fit. She's unlike any woman he has teamed up with in the past. She's not always very politically correct and sometimes shows less restraint than Robicheaux. Clete Purcell and Helen loathe each other, but a grudging respect develops when they pull together to assist Robicheaux. It's rather comical.

Even though the plot of Burning Angel was not as polished as previous books, Burke is still a better writer than most mystery writers today. I'm still determined to read them all and I have five more to go.

Even if you are not a history buff nor care anything for science, I would still recommend this book to you. Whenever I feel my mind getting dull, I pick up this book, sit down for a few hours, and read right on through. This book, for me (and I bet it would for you), really helps me to see 'connections' in the world around me -- at work, home, etc. And, that helps me to be sharp of mind and bring together resources and diverse elements to the benefit of my job, life, and for the benefit of others. This book is a fun exercise in thought as well as a fun jaunt through history.

Readers or viewers familiar with James Burke's work in CONNECTIONS or THE DAY THE UNIVERSE CHANGED know the delight he takes in tracing the pathways of invention and change. THE PINBALL EFFECT is more material in the same vein with a new twist. This volume is a hyper-book. It can be read front to back like any other text, or in any of four hundred and fourty-seven (?) other directions by following links annotated in the margins. That means you can burrow through the book popping up for air in chapters three, seven and twenty and then back to one again, read sequentially for a while and then dive once more. Amazingly, it works, and illustrates the meta-message lurking in Burke's work. (Sorry, couldn't help myself.) Everything is connected, and by much shorter links than most of us imagine. Five star brain candy.

James Burke has done it again. This is a delightful read! For anyone who thinks history is boring, they need to read The Pinball Effect. James Burke has a wonderful irreverant sense of humor throughout this book, and shows how history happens because of all of us, not just great men of genius.

Burke's "Connections" is an excellent reference source. It aroused a passion within the reader to progress further with this fascinating subject, of how significant events were connected, and how technology devolped from them.
The Pinball Effect is a good example of an author, that like Clive Custler, should have stopped writing while they were ahead.
A very boring read

This is an ingenious ways of writing a book but it borders more on a way of storing information. It is not the type of book that you read from cover to cover although you could that if you wanted to. It is essentially cross-referenced with itself. What is does is talk about a particular advancement or invention, providing page numbers in the margins for other advancements or inventions that that one enabled. You can bounce all through the book this way - hence the name of the book. It is very interesting but there is a certain amount of information overload. I kept wondering 'How does he know all of this stuff?'.

As an avid civil war reader I was a little disappointed at the amount of really new material. Most of the stories will be familiar to civil war buffs. I agree with the reviewer who mentioned the story of the Rains brother as a notable exception to this. That was truly a fascinating story, and one I was not aware of until I read it in this book.

It's okay... I think it has a lot of "filler" in it. I'd rather have a smaller book with precise information in it - stuff that you would not find in other books or you wouldn't have come up with on your on.

I can recommend this book because the facts I found were not only interesting, but also important to know as an American. I think every history teacher should probably own a copy. Thanks!

Great read, read it in a day. What odd things happened in those times and were put on record for us to find these many years later. Fun and filled with fun facts.

This book is a must for Civil War buffs, presenting lots of odd facts about the War Between the States which one would probably not come across except in bits and pieces in other works. I never get tired of looking through this one.

James Lee Burke is a good writer, but this isn't a good book. The paperback edition is more than 500 pages long. The book would have benefited greatly from an editor who could wield a red pen and delete about 250 pages of excess fat.

The story makes the protagonist, Dave Robicheaux, look like a dunce. He knows someone is out to intimidate him and his family but he takes no precautions. So time after time, the bad guys get into his house and physically abuse his wife and then him. It is hard to believe a former New Orleans' homicide detective who now works for the sheriff's office could be so stupid and cavalier.

The story is written in the first person. Rather than explain some of the local New Orleans lingo, the author has Dave's friend Clete Purcel explain it to him. Pretty tedious.

I recommend trying one of Burke's other books.

Warning: spoilers---
This is my first Burke novel. It won't be my last, but I sure hope that Robicheaux wises up in the other books. Let me count the ways in which he demonstrates he's not smart enough to dress and feed himself, let alone be a cop:

1. Twisted bad guy attacks and terrorizes wife. What does hero cop husband do? Does he tell his tough-as-nails fearless hired man, who works all day a hundred feet away from the house about it, and to keep an eye on her? No. Does Bootsie the wife go "yo, husband, I'm taking a little vacation until you catch this lunatic."? No. Does Robicheaux stay home himself? No, he gallivants all over the landscape and when he comes home gets ambushed by the exact same bad guy, who has an accomplice and Bootsie tied and gagged.

2. All kinds of people, both cops and colorful bad guys, warn him that he's up against something seriously bad and scary. He goes "huh" and leaves it at that.

3. Twisted bad guy breaks into the house a couple nights later, while Bootsie and hero cop are sleeping, and watches them sleep. Then writes a message on the mirror and leaves other obvious signs he was there. Meanwhile, Robicheaux doesn't have nightmares about twisted bad guy like a normal person, oh no, he has nightmares about something a creepy little preacher told him, and sleeps right through this guy breaking through a deadbolt and sneaking around his house. No alarm system, no dog, none of his tough but colorful cop friends helping out.

4. Three times the twisted bad guy invades their home and does horrible things. But Bootsie still stays put, and Robicheaus gets dumber, which hardly seem possible. Every strange car that creeps down their driveway he dismisses as nothing important. Then he gets caught by the twisted bad guy in the absolute stupidest ambush of all time- a truck supposedly broken down just down his street, with a suspicious vehicle lurking behind it. He walks right into it, not a care in the world.

Burke creates a nice sense of atmosphere and locale, and he draws a colorful cast of characters. Men characters, that is, the women might as well be cardboard cutouts. Bootsie gets terrorized, and she's worried about husband? Yeah, whatever! Still, it's a lively, engrossing read. I just wish the hero cop wasn't such a dunce.

Burke can do no harm with this series. All additions are wonderful and dark and thoughtful and memorable. See my review of his Crusader's Cross for a general picture.

Only a writer as talented as Burke could get away with a plot this far-fetched. Nazi submarines, nuns and psychopaths-- these are subjects that in the hands of a lesser writer would make us cringe and close the book. Burke somehow almost makes it believable. He definitely makes the material into a one of his trademark dark and absorbing reads.

Bit by bit, Robicheaux is having his innocence and idealism chipped away. Dixie City Jam does not reveal what the readers will find underneath.

I can believe that this is not the best of the Robicheaux books. The premise of the plot is just a bit too far-fetched. Still, the characters have some truly brilliant moments-- I particularly liked Tommy Bobalouba. This was the second Burke that I have read, and it only strengthens my desire to read the other books in the series.

For the first time in a long time, Dave Robicheaux's life seems to be going well. His wife Bootsie's Lupus is under control, his business is doing well as is his daughter Alafair. Then Dave sees an old german sub, sunk during WWII and all kinds of strange things begin to happen in his life.

This time the woman in Dave and Clete's lives are the targets of a lunatic, who has been murdering people all over the world. He has a compatriot who will surprise you later in the book. Most of the time Dave is busy chasing after this guy who seems to be a ghost and lives completely off the radar. No history or background and nothing in the NCIS computer files.

Clete has more fun in this book than is legal; he fills a guys car with cement from a stolen cement mixer, and drives an earth grader through the guys brothers house. In between he gets some great lines and gets to spend a week fishing, while Dave runs around southeastern Louisiana chasing his ghost.

As always, come the end, Dave works everything out; the good guys win and the bad guys get their just desserts. There is a great line from Stephen Crane in the book that I'll paraphrase as:

Most people aren't nouns, their adverbs, spending their time modifying situation and dangers they have no control over.