The Glass Rainbow

The Glass Rainbow (2010) by James Lee Burke. This latest in the Dave Robicheaux series of detective novels strikes me as one of the best, although I've only read a few of them. Burke has an elliptical, poetic style of writing the lends portent to even routine matters of police work; in this book, Robicheaux "sees" an old 19th-century paddle-wheeler coming up various bodies of water to take him away to the next life. It figures prominently in the shootout that comes at the end of the book. Burke creates a number of varied, interesting secondary characters to populate his story, and each one stands out vividly in one's memory of the book. All in all, this is an entertaining read, and one which will reward the attentive reader. Grade: B+