Purple Cane Road is James Lee Burke's latest novel of Dave Robicheaux, the hard-fisted, sentimental detective who works for the New Iberia Police Department, operates a bait and fishing operation, and is married to the lovely Bootsie. Burke has written a dozen novels in this series, and Purple Cane Road is one of his best.

There are several stories within the main story of this novel - Burke's search for his mother's killers - that tie together in the end. As the story opens, Robicheaux quickly learns that his mother, Mae Guillory, was possibly murdered by two members of the police department 30 years earlier. When he begins to dig into this story, Robicheaux slowly uncovers ties to his motherÌs murder that involve a death-row inmate, a high-ranking police officer, a hitman who has gone off the deep end, and a state attorney general.

Unlike some of the last few Robicheaux novels, Burke in Purple Cane Road hits the top of his form again. Filled with surprises, and tightly plotted, this book is definitely a page-turner, one of those novels that draws the reader so quickly forward that there is a real danger of losing sight of the story. Whether Dave Robicheaux is dealing with an ambitious ex-cop who is putting the moves on his wife or with Clete Purcel, his best friend whose temper is as quick and explosive as a bolt of heat lightning, he takes us on an adventure that is both fast-paced and insightful.

Readers who have followed the Dave Robicheaux stories will find all the old elements here. These novels make us want to hop aboard a plane and head for Cajun Country. James Lee Burke has a real talent for bringing to the printed page everything from the smell of strong coffee in the French Market in New Orleans to the sound the wind makes as it rattles through the cane fields in the wintertime. Between storms "... the sky was the color of cardboard, the fields flooded, the dirt road like a long wet, yellow scar through the cane." Buildings too, particularly if they are dilapidated, are carefully painted by Burke:

'The building was tan stucco and contained an arched foyer and flagstone courtyard planted with banana trees. An "Out to Lunch" sign hung in the downstairs window. I went through the foyer and up the stairs to the second floor, where Clete lived in a one-bedroom apartment with a balcony that gave onto the street. The ironwork on the balcony was overgrown with bougainvillea, and in the evening Clete put on a pair of blue, baggy, knee-length boxing trunks and pumped barbells out there under a potted palm like a friendly elephant.'

Besides his talent for bringing the bayou country to life on paper, Burke's philosophical ruminations are as intriguing as usual. Robicheaux comments on everything from the death penalty to jazz, from prison life to outboard fishing. Particularly moving are his backward glances at his past and the past of the country around him, bittersweet moments filled both with nostalgic regrets and ugly memories.

One interesting theme buried in all the Dave Robicheaux novels is the idea of Eden, a place of innocence. In RobicheauxÌs eyes, this Eden exists both in parts of his past and in his presentday home on the bayou. His home is an old-fashioned place of peace and pleasure, an oasis of safety in a world of violence and death. In this home are Bootsie, Robicheaux's wife; Alafair, their adopted daughter; and Batist, the elderly black man who helps work the bait shop and barbeque operation. Occasionally the ugly world invades this fortress of tranquility, and Robicheaux finds himself forced to defend his family and his way of life against these intruders. The strongest bonds in the book are those of family and friends; the bonds wrought by work and by the government are shown as weak indeed when compared with these.

Some of Purple Cane Road will irritate discerning readers. Robicheaux is piously, and in many ways, endearingly moralistic, a Louisiana puritan, yet at the end of this novel in which he has hunted down killers who faked a murder, Robicheaux himself switches evidence to shift the blame in a murder. There is not the faintest hint of irony connected with this deception, making it seem as if both Roicheaux and his creator believe that guys with pure hearts may go around whacking people who look cross-eyed at their wives or faking evidence to mislead the police, but that bad guys who do similar crimes deserve to be blown away.

Although we may grouse a little, Burke fans are already looking forward to the next Dave Robicheaux book. If itÌs half as good as this one, then weÌre in for another treat.

(Jeff Minick owns Saints and Scholars Bookstore in downtown Waynesville.)