Dave Robicheaux has spent his life confronting the age-old adage that the sins of the father pass onto the son. But what has his mother’s legacy left him? Dead to him since youth, Mae Guillory has been shuttered away in the deep recesses of Dave’s mind. He’s lived with the fact that he would never really know what happened to the woman who left him to the devices of his whiskey-driven father. But deep down, he still feels the loss of his mother and knows the infinite series of disappointments in her life could not have come to a good end. While helping out an old friend, Dave is stunned when a pimp looks at him sideways and asks him if he is Mae Guillory’s boy, the whore a bunch of cops murdered 30 years ago. The pimp goes on to insinuate that the cops who dumped her body in the bayou were on the take and continue to thrive in the New Orleans area. Dave’s search for his mother’s killers leads him to the darker places in his past and solving this case teaches him what it means to be his mother’s son. Purple Cane Road has the dimensions of a classic-passion, murder, and nearly heartbreaking poignancy-wrapped in a wonderfully executed plot that surprises from start to finish.

Purple Cane Road, part of the Dave Robicheaux Mysteries series by James Lee Burke, is a captivating crime fiction novel that follows the protagonist, Dave Robicheaux, as he delves into a complex and gripping mystery. With Burke's masterful storytelling and vivid descriptions, readers are taken on a thrilling journey through the Louisiana bayou, where secrets are uncovered and justice is sought. A must-read for fans of the genre, Purple Cane Road promises to keep readers on the edge of their seats until the very end.