Some time ago I was contacted by a publicist at Simon & Schuster, who asked me if I’d be interested in getting review copies of new books. I said, “Sure!” which might have been a mistake, for now I have a stack of books which I’ve been putting off reading. On the one hand, it’s possible that I’ll find a new author to read; on the other hand, it’s likely that many of them won’t be to my taste.

This is the first of them (the first that I’ve gotten around to reading, that is); it’s a hard-boiled police procedural set in the town of New Iberia, Louisiana, and featuring a police detective named Dave Robicheaux. This is the fifteenth of James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux novels, none of which I’d previously read, and I’m of two minds about it.

Robicheaux is an interesting character, sort of a southern cousin of Lawrence Block’s Matthew Scudder. He’s a veteran of both Viet Nam and the New Orleans Police Department, an ex-drunk and member of AA, and (as the author describes him) “a blue-collar knight-errant tragically flawed by hubris.” As the book begins he’s confronted by a number of cases: a young woman who mysteriously commits suicide; a violent confrontation between two frat boys and a black drug-deealer; a young woman who’s been spotted counting cards in the local casinos, and who might have helped rob a bank a month or two earlier. The card counter is the daughter of an old buddy of Robicheaux’s from his drinking days, a buddy who was killed by the mob during an armored car heist. So happens, the mobster responsible is the father of one of the two frat boys. And the other frat boy was recently seen with the young woman who committed suicide.

Robicheaux proceeds by visiting people, asking questions, and (when he’s got no better idea, which seems to be quite often) being as obnoxious as possible to the suspects in hopes of shaking something loose. In the latter activity he’s occasionally assisted by Clete, an old buddy from his NOPD days and now a private-eye in New Iberia. Clete’s a fascinating case, a fellow veteran, a staunch friend, a guy with a heart of gold and a staggering tendency to self-destruction. Robicheaux has one of the latter himself (he slugs the local DA in the mouth at one point), but Clete makes him look like a model of caution and propriety.

I found the book gripping; I read it in two evenings, and would gladly have read it in one. Burke’s prose is sometimes a little too purple, though perhaps that’s appropriate for Louisiana; as one of the characters observes, half the state’s under water, and the other half is under indictment. At the same time, I didn’t cordially like it. There’s more foul language and graphic violence in the book than I care for these days (though nothing out of the ordinary for the genre, I’d say), and there’s a sense that everyone in the book–indeed, everyone in the state, and perhaps everyone everywhere–are morally corrupt, and for sale to the highest bidder. You might say it takes a dim view of the human condition. On the other hand, Robicheaux continues to struggle to do the right thing, even as he sometimes fails to rein in his baser, more violent impulses. It’s actually rather a compelling picture of sin and suffering; if only it included a stronger picture of repentance and redemption.

So as I say, I have mixed feelings about the book. On the one hand, it certainly held my attention; on the other hand, I’m not sure I like the say it made me feel while I was reading it.

The important question, of course, is whether or not I’ll track down any of the earlier books in the series, and the answer is that I’m not sure. If I were stuck somewhere without a book to read and a James Lee Burke were on offer, I’d certainly be willing to give it a try; otherwise, I dunno. But maybe I will.