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I read Sunset Limited, by James Lee Burke. This novel takes place in the 1990 s in New Iberia, Louisiana. The theme of this novel is, With money comes the will to kill, but also the power to manipulate those around you and get away with murder. Dave Robicheaux and his partner Helen Soileau are homicide detectives under the New Iberia Parish in Louisiana when a Newsweek reporter, Megan Flyn, tips them about a small time criminal, Cool Breeze Broussard, complaining of abuse in lockdown in the local jail. As Dave investigates Cool Breeze, a mutual respect and trust develop between the two, and Cool Breeze tells him of a scam he was pulling on the Giancano family, an Italian mob selling VCRs and dubbed tapes of Kung Fu movies. While talking with Cool Breezes father, dave learns that Alex Guildry, the jailer, is going to try to kill Cool for accusing him of abuse.
When Cool is attacked in the workshop, Alex was fired. Adrien Glazier, a FBI agent, contacted Dave about the incident in the jail believing they set up the attack. Meanwhile Megan has a brother, Cisco Flyn, who is a movie producer in New Iberia. Their father, Jack Flyn, what brutally tortured and murdered, crucified, forty years ago. This is a case, which Dave has been obsessed with for years. A man named Archer Terrebonne is investing into one of his movies.
Archer is suspect for the murder of Jack. A while back, Adrien showed Dave pictures of a man named Swede Boxleiter doing a lawn job in the middle of daylight, with cameras all around him. Except, none of the cameras were able to capture him killing his fellow inmate in the penitentiary. That man is now living with Cisco Flyn and is playing a role in his upcoming film. Swede is a major player in organized crime.
Lila Terrebonne, Archers daughter, is a fellow AA member with Robicheaux. However she has serious emotional problems, it is believed that she was either molested or raped as a child. After going to a confessional and telling some secret sin that is so powerful to the priest, that two days later a stranger who intended to kill him confronted him on his boat. That is until thew Father pulled out his twelve gauge, pump action shotgun and aimed it at the chest cavity of the stranger with false teeth. Robicheaux later learned that that man was Harpo Scruggs, who was believed to be dead. Harpo is linked to many murders, but no one has found any evidence to convict him of them.
As the plot unfolds, you learn of the supposed suicide of Cool Breezes wife, Ida, who had been sleeping with Alex Guildry. Dave believed the story to be suspicious, however, and confirmed his suspicions after related to the story to Swede, who Dave still sees as a murderer who should be in jail, but Robicheaux respects his intellect as a con man. After exhuming Idas body to perform and autopsy, they found that she murdered, and did not commit suicide. She also was pregnant at the time of her death, but not with Cool Breezes kid, it had to be Guildry's. After interrogating Alex Guildry, he promised to give information on what happened on Jack Flyn in exchange for immunity. When Dave and Helen went to meet him at the barn where Jack had been crucified, they found Alex slumped in the seat of car shot, half dead.
Before he passed on, he said something about them standing on it the whole time. And after sweeping the area with metal detectors, the price found a gall jar with a metal lid inside a tree stump. Inside were three pictures of the three men torturing Jack, only one of which could be identified it was Archer Terrebonne! Twenty-four hours after Robicheaux arrested him, archer was set free after a few phone calls from a judge, senators, and some congressmen. In the midst of this fiasco, two men attacked Megan Flyn during the night and nearly drowned her. She was left alive as a sign to Dave to get off the case.
One of the men was believed to be Harpo Scruggs, but they had no evidence to prove it once again. The other had an identifying characteristic, a chain tattoo on his left wrist. The next day, Swede Boxleiter threw him out of and eighth story window, landing on a fire hydrant. Dave Robicheaux later found a witness named Ruby Gravano, who was a prostitute under services to Harpo Scruggs the night of Jack Flyn's murder. Before they kidnapped jack, the kidnapped her from the brothel they found her in and took along for the murder. She claimed Harpo gave her a metal box to hide and threatened to kill her if she told a soul.
She was later found dead near a swamp. Around the same time, two men carrying automatic riffles attacked Swede Boxleiter in his house. After slashing one across the chest, a bullet passed through the center of his brain. One day while helping out in a bait shop owned by a friend near his home, Dave looked up to see Harpo Scruggs holding a revolver in his hand. He takes Dave to his pick-up and instructs him to drive to Opelouas. They pull into the driveway of a two-story yellow farmhouse and marched towards the barn in the rear of the property.
After sitting ion a wooden chair, Scruggs points with his gun to the corner of the barn, where Robicheaux finds the metal box e learned of from Ruby. When Harpo finishes informing Dave that side he would find evidence to convict Archer, he proceeded to point the barrel of his revolver into his mouth and pull the trigger. Inside the small box was a hammer used to crucify jack, handcuffs, and a towel on which they held Jacks face. Scruggs said they would find the blood of jack and the fingerprints of Terrebonne on the items. However the police lab specialists were unable to lift the prints off of the forty-year-old artifacts.
And so, Archer walked away a free, rich man. While Robicheaux tried to forget. Bibliography:
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