Carol. said: Some books are made for procrastination reads, and this is one of them. Bought and All that changes the day the red rain falls from a cloudless sky. Just hours like · one year ago · Add your answer · See 1 . 1. Yes, there is talk of scavenging along the way, explaining why she's not carrying too much food.
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I suppose that is because I've finished half-a-zillion books since then. Nevertheless, it's a short book and I'm going to re-read it now. We have most of James Lee Burke's Robicheaux novels and my edition is a yellowed paperback, different edition from this one pictured. I started reading it again because it was listed in Amazon's lifetime must-read mysteri July, I started reading it again because it was listed in Amazon's lifetime must-read mysteries. It's still good and so far not too dated to be entertaining.
There was a lot of useless murder and bloodshed and some long-winded, esoteric flashbacks of Dave's past that didn't add much to the storyline. As I mentioned before, I've softened my attitude a bit towards Dave, though I still don't find him to be a very sympathetic character. I haven't seen the movie. Never thought of it that way before.
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View all 8 comments. I finally finished this book. When I heard there is some sort of fan club for this Dave Robicheaux guy, I was curious to see if I'll join. First of all, I must confess that my attention was not the best. So, as my rating tells you, I enjoyed it, although I didn't find it riveting. If anything, although I don't read this genre often, the story was very familiar: The narrator of this audiobook and, apparently, of all Burke books is Will Patton, who was excellent.
His voice is unforgettable. View all 5 comments. Jun 08, Rebecca McNutt rated it it was amazing Shelves: A riveting and exciting book from beginning to end, The Neon Rain is an unforgettable crime novel. I decided to start at the beginning and re-read all of his novels in order and with this first book I'm not disappointed. I can't wait to start the next book in the Dave Robicheaux series.
Mmmm mmmmm, I do love me some James Lee Burke. I'm a huge fan of beautiful prose, and Burke provides that here in large helpings. If you want tons of atmosphere, lots of poetic phrasing, and a loving sense of place, you can't do much better. And then there's the characters with their regionally flavored dialogue and, in audio format, accents to enjoy.
IMHO Burke's books are especially enjoyable in audio, because of all the regional flavors and the natural cadences inherent in his writing. It's a pleasure to listen to his words spoken out loud. Fortunately, the two major narrators of the Robicheaux novels -- Will Patton and Mark Hammer -- both do great jobs at bringing Burke's words to life. I personally prefer Hammer's vocal timbre and style for Robicheaux -- he has a rough, world-weary sound that fits Dave perfectly -- but Patton is very good as well, and he also has the advantage of being a native Southerner.
But enough about narrators and prose. This book is very violent and even gory in spots -- I don't like to post spoilers in reviews, but I will say that entrails and pigs are involved at one point -- yet there is never any sensationalism or sense of glorifying the violence. In fact, these books usually seem restrained and thoughtful to me even in the midst of the violent episodes.
These qualities are reflected in the character of Dave Robicheaux himself. Dave is a battle-scarred war veteran and recovering alcoholic who kills two people during the story and physically attacks several others, but we never see him raging or fuming or boasting or revelling in what he's doing. This is a guy who simply sees his goal and then does what needs to be done in order to get there. Dave is the kind of person who quotes Robert Frost and reads E. Forster, then takes his girlfriend out to the races and falls in love, all while his life is falling apart around him.
I always get the sense that there's a lot more going on in Dave's head than he tells us about, or maybe more than he knows about himself -- but that really just increases the fascination for me. I'd love to see a few chapters from someone else's POV some time, because I suspect that Dave looks much different to others than he does to himself.
As for the plot -- well, yes, there is a plot. Others may disagree, but I feel as though the overall plotline is not really the point in Burke's books. The Robicheaux novels really seem to be mostly about what Dave goes through and how he reacts to his experiences, with less emphasis on how all the pieces fit together into the Big Picture.
It may just be me, especially since I'm a total sucker for character in addition to my love for good prose, but that is my persistent impression. So if you like to read books with really strong plots, that may be a weakness for you. Well, this review has turned out to be longer than I expected, so I'll wrap it up.
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Over all, this is my kinda writing. And I'm not alone in appreciating it. Burke has won two Edgar awards for novels plus the Edgar Grand Master award, as well as one Gold Dagger, and one of his novels was even nominated for the Pulitzer. I can't wait to see what Burke does with Dave over the course of the series, and I'll definitely be reading several more of these books.
And, lucky me, Burke has also written two other series, as well as several standalone novels. I won't be running out of his books any time soon. Unfortunately, I read Black Cherry Blues first, then this one and I really like to read character series in order. Too late to complain now. Should have done better research.
Liked this book a lot and had to go through a thought process to determine four or five stars. Wish I could have halfs because I would have upped it to four and one half stars. Settled on four after waffling for a few minutes. I really liked the book though and it set up the Dave Robicheaux character with more background inf Unfortunately, I read Black Cherry Blues first, then this one and I really like to read character series in order.
I really liked the book though and it set up the Dave Robicheaux character with more background info. This guy is something else in that he really goes by his own rules, his own idea of morality, and don't get in his way when you're on the wrong side. Let me say though, his humanity is visible but if you're the bad guy and he knows it, better move to another town and change your name. Dave has his own rule book and he will hunt you down and come after you.
In the last 50 pages or so I started thinking about the lovely descriptions of the landscape, it's set in New Orleans and the bayous how Robicheaux makes decisions and how he decides what is important to him. Burke's writing was almost poetic, prose like, and lyrical in some instances. I have a fondness for such writing so it really captured my imagination although it was the end. It was after all the violence and the final outcome and then this lovely use of the English language. Calmness after all that violence. Nice job, James Lee Burke, and now I know why you have such great following.
Jun 16, Greg rated it it was amazing Shelves: But that's not going to happen for Robicheaux, who will, for example, bring bad cops to their knees in a heartbeat then handcuff them to the bumper of a car and drive away. I've read five in this series and decided to go back to where it all started. Burke writes sensational characters amid the magnificent and singular atmosphere of the bayous of Louisiana. He puts you there, right on Robicheaux's houseboat, right inside New Orlean's jazz clubs and whore houses, then takes you to the murky bottom of infested waters and to the underground dead.
In past novels, I've looked for plots, but there is just one: Detective Robicheaux wants a simple life and the world is intent on ensuring he doesn't find it. James Lee Burke is brilliant, brutal, unexpected, and thoroughly American. Aug 02, Mark rated it it was amazing Recommends it for: Recommended to Mark by: This is the novel I read after "Donna Tartt's Goldfinch" and it was meant as some light relief reading after reading such a massive and complex book. Well that was me looking all stupid. If anything Mr Burke does know how to write a complex story as well, and he brings the Bayous and New Orleans to life on paper.
It is my biggest failure of of not visiting the Big Easy before Kathrina and somehow the writer does bring that lost world back to life. Dave Robicheaux, a brilliant name, visits a man o This is the novel I read after "Donna Tartt's Goldfinch" and it was meant as some light relief reading after reading such a massive and complex book.
Dave Robicheaux, a brilliant name, visits a man on dead row and finds out he might have some dead sentence of his own hanging over his head. Which he finds out has a lot to do with him pressing the case of some dead girl fished out of the bayou and him disagreeing about the cause of dead. The story contains some references to a war in Middle America which might be unfamiliar to readers of a younger age, just look it up if you want to learn more about stupid US foreign interventions. It is a pretty tough story with some serious violence but also some brilliant insight in the addiction to alcohol.
Among all of this DR remains a beacon of hope even if all of this mess started with him having principles. And this is just the first novel. Mar 22, Donna rated it really liked it Shelves: This book is the first in a series and it is the first book I've read by this author.
I enjoyed this book. I did the audio and loved the narrator. He did a super job with all the different accents and this completely added to my enjoyment.
Rain of Bullets by Patricia A. Martinelli
Since this is my first experience with this author, I didn't know what to expect. I will definitely read more by him. His writing was fun to pay attention to. He periodically punctuated the story with some extremely frilly flourishes, but I loved that. He had This book is the first in a series and it is the first book I've read by this author. He had a great way with words.
And yet in other areas, he showed a great economy of word usage. I was intrigued by this type of writing. It ebbed and flowed nicely. The story was kind of dark in places, but it didn't feel like an exhibition. Again, the writing worked here. It kept this tightly controlled. While this isn't usually a story I'd gravitate to, I felt I could understand the characters in their own world.
What a wonderfully evocative title, sadly I think the title was my favourite part of the book. This felt like the middle ground between something I love and something that leaves me cold, a mixture of Dashiell Hammett or one of those great classic writers of the hardboiled, black as night, noir school of crime and James Patterson or one of the many, many, many generic crime thriller writers out there lining up to shift some units no matter how average to mediocre their novels are.
I liked Dave Rob What a wonderfully evocative title, sadly I think the title was my favourite part of the book. I liked Dave Robicheaux as a protagonist and to a certain extent I enjoyed James Lee Burkes prose but the style of storytelling is what let it down for me, this constant stream of violent events designed to keep you turning the page has no place in my world. My eyes glazed over the fourth time our hero was beaten up and I found myself paying less attention to the prose style and more to the endless stream of events, in the hope that soon the book would end. I have six more novels from Burke on the shelf but they're all going back to the secondhand bookdealer without being read, life is too short to read this stuff when there are dozens of great authors with dozens of novels in their back catalogue to savour.
Bring on more David Goodis and Megan Abbott please. Aug 26, Eric rated it it was ok Shelves: I really wanted to like this, and I'm not entirely sure why I didn't. I love detective stories, roguish anti-heroes, and New Orleans. I loved Will Patton's narration. But something about the story just seemed to fall in the uncanny valley -- it was too unbelievable to be realistic, but too realistic to accept as a noir or camp style decision.
Also -- and this may have contributed to it feeling "too" realistic -- it seemed overwritten and unnecessarily descriptive at points. I couldn't even finis I really wanted to like this, and I'm not entirely sure why I didn't. I couldn't even finish it, having left off at a critical plot moment view spoiler [Robicheaux, who was just force-fed drugs and alcohol, is trapped in a car with another beaten law enforcement officer that is dangling off the edge of a parking garage hide spoiler ].
A look at his past arrests is not very helpful in pinpointing the culprits, but it gives the readers an early indication of the sort of hard-boiled, gritty and dangerous journey we are about to embark on: I went through my case file and didn't see any connection. I had a whole file drawer of misery to look at, too: My drawer was like a microcosm of an aberrant world populated by snipers, razor-wielding blacks, mindless nickel-and-dime boost artists who eventually panic and kill a convenience-store clerk for sixty dollars, and suicides who fill the apartment with gas and blow the whole building into a black and orange fireball.
What a bunch to dedicate your life to. With a little help from snitches and other connections to the New Orleans criminal organizations through his brother Dave is able to narrow the field of investigation to the recent discovery of a drowned young prostitute.
Both the drug lords and his superiors on the Force advise Dave to let it go, as it is not his jurisdiction and there seem to be more serious issues at play, issues going up to federal level, Colombian illegal imports and government support of right wing militias in the Central American republics. Robicheaux is not an easy man to push around and to intimidate.
When a trio of mysterious goons attack him in the house of his new girlfriend, Dave goes ballistic, Rambo style, takes the law into his own hands and brings the war to the enemy camp. There's no point in giving more details about the plot: It's enough to say that action fans should be really thrilled by the quality of this new series. For me, the opening novel had its ups and downs, but the final balance points towards further study of the possiblities offered by a classical style of noir story told from a modern perspective. I don't usually do a structural analysis, but in this case I find it easier to split my impressions into categories: The solution to the case if offered to Dave on a plate by his informers.
Only a couple of side issues point to his actual deducting prowess, like the missing spent case from a bullet. Dave Robicheaux comes off the page as a vigilante and not a lawman, a guy who ignores rules and authority and solves his problems with fists, firearms or a sock filled with ball bearings. The bad guys act foolishly, in one of the most common cliches of action thrillers: A love interest thrown into the mix feels rushed and mostly gratuitous.
Dave Robicheaux reminds me a little of Harry Hole, another tough guy with atitude problems that failed to convince me in his debut novel. The main problem I had with Dave is not any of his particular vices or habits, but the sum total of these discrete personality traits. Like the Cajun cuisine Dave loves so much, Burke has thrown everything in the pot with a resulting jambalaya of conflicting flavors that often read like overkill and distracts from the credibility of his hero.
There is no mystery to the self; we are what we do and where we have been. So we have to ressurect the past constantly, erect monuments to it, and keep it alive in order to remember who we are. So, who is Dave Robicheaux from the perspective of his actions and of his past: Dave is a stand-in for all the harboiled detectives and private investigators that made the genre famous in the s. He was arrested on a charge of sexually assaulting a minor in , at age 70, went back to prison, and died there of heart failure in Martinelli, who is related to the Mazzoli family, took a year to write the book and says it has been very thoroughly researched.
Published first published January 15th To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Rain of Bullets , please sign up. Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Jan 24, Felicia Bianco rated it it was ok. I read this book last year because I learned from family members about this story that took place in our area some 60 years ago. Pioppi, Mazzoli, and many other local family names pop up in the book.
Man slaughters family members of his estranged wife in revenge for not being granted visitation of his two young sons. Although I really wanted to give this book a higher rating, I couldn't I read this book last year because I learned from family members about this story that took place in our area some 60 years ago.
Although I really wanted to give this book a higher rating, I couldn't for the following reasons: Too many unimportant facts about the trial. Book needed to focus more on what became of the victims and their families and focus less on the trial which became drawn out. Did not enjoy the writing style. I did like the fact that the author is a Vineland resident. So I would recommend this book only to locals who want to know about this crime. All others will be bored.
This has to be the worst of the hundreds of true crime books I have read. Potential here for so much more Does the author explore how the survivors coped with this horrible tragedy? Is there any followup of how they were affected by their loss? Do we even get details from the officials involved regarding their perceptions of the victims or the perp? Instead it's an endless litany of the murderer's feel This has to be the worst of the hundreds of true crime books I have read. Instead it's an endless litany of the murderer's feelings of being mistreated, misrepresented and ignored.
This was a free book and I still feel like I've been ripped off. If I could give this book less than one star I would. Jan 13, Fishface rated it liked it Shelves: A good read about a terrible crime. The author effectively takes us back to the early Fifties, sets the scene for us, and describes where it all went wrong. She takes a lot of liberties, for instance saying what this or that person was thinking at a given moment when she couldn't have known, but it's easy to see when she's doing it. There were some maddening gaps in the information, however, and I can see that she left those holes unfilled in order to respect the wishes of people who did not wan A good read about a terrible crime.
There were some maddening gaps in the information, however, and I can see that she left those holes unfilled in order to respect the wishes of people who did not want to be interviewed. This book could really have benefitted from a diagram of family tree involved -- almost everyone was related somehow to almost everyone else in the story and at times it made for a confusing read.
That did not keep me from reading it through to the last word. This one dragged on a bit too much in regards to some of the history of the people in the book. Sometimes it takes a killer to catch a killer. Domingo Armada may be overqualified for the job. A breathtaking new thriller series. In the trendy town of Redwood, a rich kid blasts off a freeway at mph and Coach Mack investigates. Can he find the truth and prevent a war between the US and China? Try Tim Tigner -- Smart plots, clever characters, nonstop action. Beneath the Inconstant Moon.
The Jack Emery Series: This great value thriller collection has almost pages of action and intrigue! Can journalist Jack Emery beat a global conspiracy? From Publishers Weekly Storms raging outdoors and in the mind of the protagonist create a maelstrom of menace in this sinuous psychological thriller by Schow The Kill Riff; The Shaft. Harper Paperbacks; 1 edition September 23, Language: Related Video Shorts 0 Upload your video.
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There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later. I've read Schow's short stories that were splatter punk and liked them so I wanted to try one of his novels. I went looking and found Bullets of Rain, finding out this wasn't splatter punk really got me interested.
I wanted to see how he would do in a different genre. The best thing about this novel was I got to read Schow with more "elbow room" when it came to his prose as supposed to a short story. I was very impressed with his style and some of his lines hit me like a hammer to the brain. I must have dog eared twenty plus pages to go back and reread as excellent examples of power prose. I'll definitely be reading more of this guys stuff for the pure enjoyment of it as well as a learning tool to help strengthen my own writing. The plot itself keeps you guessing a little too much, but not enough to hurt the story.
I'm not sure if the final twist was quite believable for me, which is why I didn't give it five stars. But overall it was a great book and well worth the read. First off, David is a major talent with a vicious intelligence. With that in mind, do yourself a favor and pick up Bullets of Rain.
Rain of Bullets
The expanse of this novel is mindblowing, whether it be the complexities and intimacies of his characters, the atomic action, or the jaw dropping denouement. Imagine a literary Palahniuk, a violent and depraved Delillo California's answer to Harry Crews. Drugs, guns, sex, and storms! And that's only the beginning of this face-punching novel. David's the real deal, the original Bad Guy Hat. So lock the doors, crack the seal on that fifth of whiskey, put on some Slayer, and jump into Bullets of Rain.
Kindle Edition Verified Purchase. Always been a favorite of mine.
I bought this book based on the reviews on this page. I couldn't have been more disappointed. If this is suspense to those readers, we have been reading different books. The guy has some kind of sex 4 times by page 88, not very suspenseful. One person found this helpful. It's not often I find a suspense novel that grabs me by the throat and drags me into the story.