"Purple Cane Road" and "Mary Mary"

This is the one I'd been waiting for. It is the place I fell in love with James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux. I fell in love listening to Will Patton bringing life to Burke's words. The voice of Dave Robicheaux.

Unfortunately, this book is NOT available in Brisbane Australia's library system. By that I mean, it isn't available in print. So, despite my explicitly stated goal to read all of Robicheaux in order, I listened to "Purple Cane Road". And, I learned something. I learned the importance of the reader. (That is to say, it was not read by Will Patton.)

Now, since it has taken me 3 days after Christmas to get to the "twelfth day", it will come as no surprise that I actually "read" this book weeks ago. And, as a consequence my comments are very broad and lacking specifics. I'm not sure if my memory painted a story that the reality could not match or if the tale was tarnished by the wrong voice, but I was not blown away. Gosh, I hate to say that.

Similarly, while listening to Patterson's "Mary, Mary" was entertaining, it would not have launched me on a Patterson binge. Again, the narrator was all wrong for Alex Cross. This was exquisitely illustrated to me by his mispronunciation of the name Sojourner (as in Sojourner Truth.) No educated American, particularly an African American with a PhD would stumble over Sojourner. (Obviously, I was not entranced to have this error loom so large.)