A Private Cathedral

"The Dave Robicheaux books are stories about a private eye in the Louisiana Bayou. Don’t go into these expecting magic in the early books: you’re not going to get it there. But he writes with this glow to his writing that is just alive. It’s astounding. And the whole world of the Bayou seems, to me as a reader, quite otherworldly and strange, even while the events are very human: about power and who’s killing who, and about Robicheaux, an incredibly violent man trying not to be violent. But then, little by little… There’s a book called In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead (what a title!) where he’s dosed with acid, and he starts believing he can see Confederate soldiers. There’s a point in the book where his daughter has a history book , and there’s a photograph in it, and he’s in the photo with these Confederate soldiers… But you don’t know: is it supernatural? Even when it’s not being supernatural, it feels weirdly magical… And then quite late on in the series, we get to a book called A Private Cathedral , where James Lee Burke has clearly just said, ‘I’m going all in.’ Dave Robicheaux is hunted by an immortal assassin from hell, and the showdown is on a steamboat in the River Styx. It shouldn’t work. It should be ridiculous, because these are detective books . But you never question it. It’s just so well done: he creates this area of the Deep South where it does seem like the impossible isn’t really shocking, and that the magical is always there, even though you might not ever mention it. When he goes full in on it, you just think, ‘Yes, I’m here for that.’ It’s a bit like John Connolly, but Connolly’s much more into the supernatural, he leans hard into it. James Lee Burke is very gentle and soft – until he’s not. Yes – and I think he’s quite Catholic, and that feeds into it a lot. He’s not ever trying to convert you, but guilt and redemption and the possibility of miracles seem to be built into his books. I really strongly recommend them, just because they seem otherworldly, in a beautiful way. Yes. Just enjoy the things that you enjoy reading: all books are magical, all books are a created world. That’s the thing that I feel really strongly. It doesn’t matter how serious the book is and how ‘in our world,’ it’s still a fantasy. Someone once said to me that every novel is a series of unlikely coincidences that the author has to try and make you believe. And that’s the best description I’ve ever heard."