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The Neon Rain
''The Neon Rain'' is a crime novel by James Lee Burke, the first in a series featuring the fictional detective Dave Robicheaux. Plot summary While fishing on a back country bayou, New Orleans Police Department officer Dave Robicheaux finds a body. Robicheaux, once a U.S. Army infantry lieutenant who fought in the Vietnam War,James Lee Burke, ''The Neon Rain'', Simon & Schuster, 2018, page 251: "As a police officer I've shot four people, and I won't tell you about my record in Vietnam, except that I'm sick of all of it.". becomes involved with drug dealers, mafia chieftains, and a former army general with shady arms dealings in Central America. The story starts with a vivid description of Dave visiting a convict who is about to be executed at Angola penitentiary. There are crowds outside the jail, some asking for clemency, some baying for the convict's blood. Dave speaks to the convict who explains that he is trying to make amends for some of the things he has done and tells Dave t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Lee Burke
James Lee Burke (born December 5, 1936) is an American author, best known for his Dave Robicheaux series. He has won Edgar Awards for ''Black Cherry Blues'' (1990) and ''Cimarron Rose'' (1998), and has also been presented with the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America. The Robicheaux character has been portrayed twice on screen, first by Alec Baldwin (''Heaven's Prisoners'') and then Tommy Lee Jones (''In the Electric Mist''). Wirt Williams, reviewing Burke's first novel, ''Half of Paradise'' (1965), in the ''New York Times'', compared his writing to Jean-Paul Sartre and Ernest Hemingway, but concluded "Mr. Burkes' literary forebear is Thomas Hardy." Burke's 1982 novel, ''Two for Texas'', was made into a 1998 TV movie of the same name. Burke has also written five miscellaneous crime novels (including ''Two for Texas''), two short-story collections, four books starring protagonist Texas attorney Billy Bob Holland, four books starring Billy Bob's cousin Texas she ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dave Robicheaux
Dave Robicheaux (pronounced "ROW-bih-show") is a fictional character in a series of mystery novels by American crime writer James Lee Burke. He first appeared in ''The Neon Rain'' (1987). Biography A former homicide detective in the New Orleans Police Department, Robicheaux lives in New Iberia, Louisiana, and works as a detective for the Iberia Parish Sheriff's Office. He is a recovering alcoholic whose demons stem from his service as a U.S. Army lieutenant in the Vietnam War and his impoverished, difficult childhood in rural Louisiana; his mother abandoned the family and was later murdered and his father died in an oil rig explosion. He still experiences periods of major depressive disorder and nightmares, which are only exacerbated by the murder of his wife Annie Ballard, a social worker. He married a mobster's widow, Bootsie, a lupus sufferer, and adopted an El Salvadorean orphan Alafair (the namesake of Burke's own daughter), after he saves her from the wreckage of an airplan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Detective Novel
Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator or a detective—whether professional, amateur or retired—investigates a crime, often murder. The detective genre began around the same time as speculative fiction and other genre fiction in the mid-nineteenth century and has remained extremely popular, particularly in novels. Some of the most famous heroes of detective fiction include C. Auguste Dupin, Sherlock Holmes, and Hercule Poirot. Juvenile stories featuring The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and The Boxcar Children have also remained in print for several decades. History Ancient Some scholars, such as R. H. Pfeiffer, have suggested that certain ancient and religious texts bear similarities to what would later be called detective fiction. In the Old Testament story of Susanna and the Elders (the Protestant Bible locates this story within the apocrypha), the account told by two witnesses broke down when Daniel cross-examines ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publisher in the United States, publishing 2,000 titles annually under 35 different imprints. History Early years In 1924, Richard Simon's aunt, a crossword puzzle enthusiast, asked whether there was a book of ''New York World'' crossword puzzles, which were very popular at the time. After discovering that none had been published, Simon and Max Schuster decided to launch a company to exploit the opportunity.Frederick Lewis Allen, ''Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s'', p. 165. . At the time, Simon was a piano salesman and Schuster was editor of an automotive trade magazine. They pooled , equivalent to $ today, to start a company that published crossword puzzles. The new publishing house used "fad" publishing to publish bo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heaven's Prisoners (novel)
''Heaven's Prisoners'' is a crime novel written by James Lee Burke and published by Simon & Schuster in 1988. The fictional work follows Dave Robicheaux, a retired police officer and army lieutenant, who finds himself in a situation where he must protect his wife and a plane-crash survivor from a local drug kingpin. ''Heaven's Prisoners'' is the second novel by James Lee Burke featuring Dave Robicheaux, and was adapted into a film in 1996. Plot summary Once an officer for the New Orleans Police Department and before that a U.S. Army infantry lieutenant who fought in the Vietnam War, Robicheaux is living a quiet life in the swamplands of Louisiana with his wife Annie. The couple's tranquility is shattered one day when a drug smuggler's plane crashes in a lake, right before their eyes. Robicheaux succeeds in rescuing a lone survivor, a Salvadoran girl, whom he and Annie quickly adopt and name Alafair. Drug Enforcement Administration Agent Minos P. Dautrieve, however, tells Robich ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crime Novel
Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a professional detective, of a crime, often a murder. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as historical fiction or science fiction, but the boundaries are indistinct. Crime fiction has multiple subgenres, including detective fiction (such as the whodunit), courtroom drama, hard-boiled fiction, and legal thrillers. Most crime drama focuses on crime investigation and does not feature the courtroom. Suspense and mystery are key elements that are nearly ubiquitous to the genre. History The ''One Thousand and One Nights'' (''Arabian Nights'') contains the earliest known examples of crime fiction. One example of a story of this genre is the medieval Arabic tale of "The Three Apples", one of the tales narrated by Scheherazade in the ''Arabia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Orleans Police Department
The New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) has primary responsibility for law enforcement in New Orleans, Louisiana. The department's jurisdiction covers all of Orleans Parish, while the city is divided into eight police districts. The NOPD has a long history of civil rights violations, corruption and poor oversight. Since 2012, the NOPD has been in a federal consent decree where it has to implement sweeping reforms to address a wide array of structural problems identified by the U.S. Department of Justice in a 2011 report. History After New Orleans was founded by French colonists in 1718, the policing of the city was done by military forces. These were alternating French, Spanish and French under differing governmental rule. The formation of the New Orleans Police Department was first recorded in 1796, during the administration of Baron Francisco Luis Héctor de Carondelet. The account said, "Crime had reached such proportions by the mid-1790s that a full-time city police for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of the United States Constitution (1789). See alsTitle 10, Subtitle B, Chapter 301, Section 3001 The oldest and most senior branch of the U.S. military in order of precedence, the modern U.S. Army has its roots in the Continental Army, which was formed 14 June 1775 to fight the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783)—before the United States was established as a country. After the Revolutionary War, the Congress of the Confederation created the United States Army on 3 June 1784 to replace the disbanded Continental Army.Library of CongressJournals of the Continental Congress, Volume 27/ref> The United States Army considers itself to be a continuation of the Continental Army, and thus considers its institutional inception to be th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Infantry Branch (United States)
The Infantry Branch (also known as the "Queen of Battle") is a branch of the United States Army first established in 1775. History Ten companies of riflemen were authorized by a resolution of the Continental Congress on 14 June 1775. However, the oldest Regular Army infantry regiment, the 3rd Infantry Regiment, was constituted on 3 June 1784, as the First American Regiment 18th century On 3 March 1791, Congress added to the Army "1st Infantry Regiment (United States)#Origins, The Second Regiment of Infantry" * An Act of Congress on 16 July 1798 authorized twelve additional regiments of infantry * An Act of Congress on 11 January 1812 increased the Regular Army to 46 infantry and 4 rifle regiments * An Act of Congress on 3 March 1815 reduced the Regular Army from the 46 infantry and 4 rifle regiments it fielded in the War of 1812 to a peacetime establishment of 8 infantry regiments, further reduced to 7 in 1821. The origins of the Army's current regimental numbering system dates ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
First Lieutenant
First lieutenant is a commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces; in some forces, it is an appointment. The rank of lieutenant has different meanings in different military formations, but in most forces it is sub-divided into a senior (first lieutenant) and junior (second lieutenant) rank. The NATO equivalent rank for land force officers is OF-1 rank. In navies, while certain rank insignia may carry the name lieutenant, the term may also be used to relate to a particular post or duty, rather than a rank. Indonesia In Indonesia, "first lieutenant" is known as ''Letnan Satu'' (''Lettu''), Indonesian National Armed Forces uses this rank across all three of its services. It is just above the rank of second lieutenant and just below the rank of captain. Israel In the Israel Defense Forces, the rank above second lieutenant is simply lieutenant. The rank of (קצין מקצועי אקדמאי (קמ"א (''katsín miktsoí akademai'' or "kama"), a professional aca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. The north was supported by the Soviet Union, China, and other communist states, while the south was United States in the Vietnam War, supported by the United States and other anti-communism, anti-communist Free World Military Forces, allies. The war is widely considered to be a Cold War-era proxy war. It lasted almost 20 years, with direct U.S. involvement ending in 1973. The conflict also spilled over into neighboring states, exacerbating the Laotian Civil War and the Cambodian Civil War, which ended with all three countries becoming communist states by 1975. After the French 1954 Geneva Conference, military withdrawal from Indochina in 1954 – following their defeat in the First Indochina War – the Viet Minh to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1987 American Novels
File:1987 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes after leaving the Port of Zeebrugge in Belgium, killing 193; Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashes after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, killing everyone except a little girl; The King's Cross fire kills 31 people after a fire under an escalator flashes-over; The MV Doña Paz sinks after colliding with an oil tanker, drowning almost 4,400 passengers and crew; Typhoon Nina strikes the Philippines; LOT Polish Airlines Flight 5055 crashes outside of Warsaw, taking the lives of all aboard; The USS Stark is struck by Iraqi Exocet missiles in the Persian Gulf; U.S. President Ronald Reagan gives a famous speech, demanding that Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev tears down the Berlin Wall., 300x300px, thumb rect 0 0 200 200 Zeebrugge disaster rect 200 0 400 200 Northwest Airlines Flight 255 rect 400 0 600 200 King's Cross fire rect 0 200 300 400 Tear down this wall! rect 300 200 60 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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