James Lee Burke. First edition (stated), first printing. Dust Jacket: Fine. An unclipped jacket in a mylar protective wrapper. Jacket design by Victor Weaver. Hardcover: Fine. New York: Hyperion, 1994. No writing or markings in the book, like new, 367 pp. Blue cloth with black spine and gold lettering.
This is one of the first novels in the "Dave Robicheaux" series. Each novel stands alone and they do not have to be read in the order in which they were published.
In this novel the search for a Forgotten Nazi submarine sunk off the coast of New Orleans stirs up old hatreds submerged for just as long. Out there under the salt there are the bodies of German seamen who used to wait at the mouth of the Mississippi for unescorted American tankers sailing from the oil refineries of Baton Rouge to the Gulf. As a child, Dave Robicheaux has been haunted by the sailors' images. Then, as a young student he'd accidentally discovered one of their subs while scuba diving. Robicheaux, a detective with the New Iberia sheriff's office finds himself and his family at serious risk, stalked for his knowledge of a watery burial ground by a man who believes that the Holocaust was a big hoax.
The author has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, and his novel The Lost Get-Back Boogie was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He also won the Edgar Award (1989) for Black Cherry Blues.
