--- product_id: 14083287 title: "The Tin Roof Blowdown: A Dave Robicheaux Novel" price: "S$3" currency: SGD in_stock: false reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.sg/products/14083287-the-tin-roof-blowdown-a-dave-robicheaux-novel store_origin: SG region: Singapore --- # The Tin Roof Blowdown: A Dave Robicheaux Novel **Price:** S$3 **Availability:** ❌ Out of Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** The Tin Roof Blowdown: A Dave Robicheaux Novel - **How much does it cost?** S$3 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Currently out of stock - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.sg](https://www.desertcart.sg/products/14083287-the-tin-roof-blowdown-a-dave-robicheaux-novel) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description Winner of the 2008 Audie Award for Mystery Dave Robicheaux returns in an adventure as timely as real life: the fight against crime, and the fight for life in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In the waning days of summer 2005, a storm with greater impact than the bomb that struck Hiroshima peels the face off southern Louisiana. This is the gruesome reality Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Detective Dave Robicheaux discovers as he is deployed to New Orleans. Hurricane Katrina has ravaged New Orleans, and it has left the streets and buildings flooded and the city awash with opportunists, looters, and vicious criminals. There is no order, no law. Police are shooting randomly at innocent people, prison guards have abandoned their posts, bodies float through the streets and hang from trees, and every drug dealer, murderer, and rapist is out taking advantage of the desperate lawlessness that holds the city captive. In the midst of it all is Robicheaux, doing his best to help regulate the post-Katrina madness, all the while on a dogged search for a pair of dangerous fugitives, a dope-addicted, fallen priest, and a vigilante insurance salesman who takes his family’s protection too far. This promises to be the most taxing and emotional case Robicheaux has had to work. In his singular style that defies genre, James Lee Burke has created a haunting picture of life in New Orleans after Katrina. Filled with complex characters and vivid descriptions of the destruction and death that gripped the Big Easy, The Tin Roof Blowdown is an action-packed crime thriller as well as a poignant story of what disaster and desperation can do to people. Review: superb offering that transcends the genre - At a friend's urging, I zipped through a couple of the early Dave Robicheaux titles — kind of liked HEAVEN'S PRISONERS — but this is the book that made a James Lee Burke fan of me. The prose is simple and apt, the imagery fresh, even startling, the moral observations trenchant, and most of the minor characters are persuasively well-drawn (including two, maybe three, of the women!), Otis Baylor and Bertrand Melancon being especially memorable. The narrative strategy (to counter the complaints of some reviews here) is sophisticated and effective. Alternating between sharply observed third-person omniscient narration and a first-person narrator was good enough for Dickens in BLEAK HOUSE — and it works here very, very well. The sites and movement of the story are so well grounded that my Cajun spouse, from St Mary Parish, could confirm nearly every temporal and topographic detail. What makes the reading experience even more powerful and affecting are the grief and rage and loss and love of place expressed, for New Orleans and Cajun country, in the aftermath of the calamitous one-two punch dealt by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. I had many friends displaced and otherwise affected by those storms, have heard their stories, their sadness, their fury; but never have I seen it given such full voice as it is here. Well done, Mr Burke, and thank you. Review: Actually four and a half stars. - This is an important book, because it's Burke's take on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and he is the master of atmospherics and physical description. The descriptions are indeed chilling and haunting and they mesh perfectly with the plot which is classic Burke--voices from the past, violent scumbags, the innocent somehow dragged into a maelstrom of ugliness, local criminals, the importance of family, the sounds and smells of the city and bayou and Dave's network, with huge helpings of Clete Purcel. It is being called his best book. It may be, but his work is so even in its quality that one can take up any one of his novels and be completely satisfied by it. And for Burke fans, there's wonderful news on the horizon: the coming film, In the Electric Mist, with Tommy Lee Jones as Dave. One curious part of the book is that Dave's daughter Alafair is now a novelist. In real life, of course, Jim's daughter Alafair is a novelist. Her third book just appeared. It is interesting that he sets up these parallels. I wonder what Alafair B thinks of it. Alafair R is bothered by her name (or at least Dave's abbreviation of it--Alf) and she plays an interesting role in this book, a major plot point turning on her actions. I would like to see Alafair B's thoughts on her fictional sister's portrayal here. The book has been criticized for its political asides. I think the criticism is fair. There's a tradition--highlighted by Chandler--of noir fiction's distrust of big government (and big unions, and big business, and big crime families . . . ) so the government--especially one that was so slow to act after Katrina--is fair game. However, the Louisiana governor gets off without a scratch here and except for an aside about the parked buses so does the Mayor of New Orleans. A comment on Fox News is way off the mark, the criticism suggesting that the narrator does not watch Fox News. The political asides do not ruin the book, but they diminish it a bit. Jim Burke is one of the two or three most important crime novelists of our time and his narration frequently sounds like the voice of an all-weary but all-wise God. We don't want him to sound like Keith Olbermann. ## Images ![The Tin Roof Blowdown: A Dave Robicheaux Novel - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81NEs3fiY2L.jpg) ## Available Options This product comes in different **Media Language, Media Format** options. ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ superb offering that transcends the genre *by M***Y on March 27, 2023* At a friend's urging, I zipped through a couple of the early Dave Robicheaux titles — kind of liked HEAVEN'S PRISONERS — but this is the book that made a James Lee Burke fan of me. The prose is simple and apt, the imagery fresh, even startling, the moral observations trenchant, and most of the minor characters are persuasively well-drawn (including two, maybe three, of the women!), Otis Baylor and Bertrand Melancon being especially memorable. The narrative strategy (to counter the complaints of some reviews here) is sophisticated and effective. Alternating between sharply observed third-person omniscient narration and a first-person narrator was good enough for Dickens in BLEAK HOUSE — and it works here very, very well. The sites and movement of the story are so well grounded that my Cajun spouse, from St Mary Parish, could confirm nearly every temporal and topographic detail. What makes the reading experience even more powerful and affecting are the grief and rage and loss and love of place expressed, for New Orleans and Cajun country, in the aftermath of the calamitous one-two punch dealt by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. I had many friends displaced and otherwise affected by those storms, have heard their stories, their sadness, their fury; but never have I seen it given such full voice as it is here. Well done, Mr Burke, and thank you. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Actually four and a half stars. *by R***Z on July 30, 2007* This is an important book, because it's Burke's take on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and he is the master of atmospherics and physical description. The descriptions are indeed chilling and haunting and they mesh perfectly with the plot which is classic Burke--voices from the past, violent scumbags, the innocent somehow dragged into a maelstrom of ugliness, local criminals, the importance of family, the sounds and smells of the city and bayou and Dave's network, with huge helpings of Clete Purcel. It is being called his best book. It may be, but his work is so even in its quality that one can take up any one of his novels and be completely satisfied by it. And for Burke fans, there's wonderful news on the horizon: the coming film, In the Electric Mist, with Tommy Lee Jones as Dave. One curious part of the book is that Dave's daughter Alafair is now a novelist. In real life, of course, Jim's daughter Alafair is a novelist. Her third book just appeared. It is interesting that he sets up these parallels. I wonder what Alafair B thinks of it. Alafair R is bothered by her name (or at least Dave's abbreviation of it--Alf) and she plays an interesting role in this book, a major plot point turning on her actions. I would like to see Alafair B's thoughts on her fictional sister's portrayal here. The book has been criticized for its political asides. I think the criticism is fair. There's a tradition--highlighted by Chandler--of noir fiction's distrust of big government (and big unions, and big business, and big crime families . . . ) so the government--especially one that was so slow to act after Katrina--is fair game. However, the Louisiana governor gets off without a scratch here and except for an aside about the parked buses so does the Mayor of New Orleans. A comment on Fox News is way off the mark, the criticism suggesting that the narrator does not watch Fox News. The political asides do not ruin the book, but they diminish it a bit. Jim Burke is one of the two or three most important crime novelists of our time and his narration frequently sounds like the voice of an all-weary but all-wise God. We don't want him to sound like Keith Olbermann. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A tortured soul, a righteous man, the near death of a culture, and good food *by M***E on June 27, 2013* Southern Lousiana cannot be depicted in a book by someone who visited there once. James Lee Burke provides one of the most satisfying glimpses into a unique culture, dark practices, strange and unpronouceable foods, stirring music, a world dripping with booze, twisted by crime, and inhabited by impoverished people who live in the clutches of a culture that has produced mardigras, boudin, etoufee, and zydeco. Voodoo, drugs, sex, gambling, and names for common fish that no one has ever heard before; those things make up Southern Louisiana. But it's more than a culture that comprises races of such wonderous mix that music, food, jazz funerals, and the like are mere products of the creative minds of a myriad carefree souls. I applaud Burke for realizing that the story of Lousians is not a linear telling of history and present practices, or a before and after Katrina comparison, or painting a bleak picture of a subordinated people. No say me, it is a song sung by sea birds, to the rhythm of falling rain and storm winds, to the beat of large fish jumping for bugs and falling back into the water, and listened to by the ears of the soul amid the aroma of fried fish, boiling crabs, crawfish, and blood sausage. If you want to hear the song and experience one of the most descriptive and colorful literary journeys of your life, read not only this one, but all of Burke's novels. There are many people to hate, those that turn your stomach, those that you'd like to twist thir heads off, and those that you can't hate no matter how hard you try. One more thing. Not many authors can crawl inside the heads of sychopaths, an alcaholic, a Viet Nam Vet that has seen too much, a killer, rapist, a torturor, an ex-cop, and an impulsive partner that seems out of control. Burke lets it all hang out with these personas; and he does it like a pro or lay psychiatrist. You must read this book, let the language become an intregal part of the backdrop and get past it, be prepared to stay up late, and have great fun in the process. --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.sg/products/14083287-the-tin-roof-blowdown-a-dave-robicheaux-novel](https://www.desertcart.sg/products/14083287-the-tin-roof-blowdown-a-dave-robicheaux-novel) --- *Product available on Desertcart Singapore* *Store origin: SG* *Last updated: 2026-10-26*