"A Stained withe radiance",  " Piccola notte cajun" James Lee Burke ed. Mondadori, 1996 L. 5.900 lire 

1999, just hired by a huge U.S. software company, driving a "1996 Ford" from Houston to Austin. Plans for the future were limited to the weekend.

With me an australian girl and two guys, one french and the other swiss.

A jazz/blues festival in Austin, the crowded streets were full of music and chilled beer.

In one of the clubs, an incredibly fat, black piano man with italian roots, was playing funny smutty songs. Beautiful girls were dancing close to me and everyone was happily smiling at the entire world. After three Budweisers I started to think that life was truly beautiful.

Jumping back to the past, what do we find?  A Stained White Radiance,  italian title: Piccola notte cajun (translated: Little Cajun Night), and who is the man that acts, speaks, behaves, beats like a  tailspinning truck? It's easy my dear, it's Dave Robicheaux!

If Ellory is the Maestro and Don Winslow is the Don, James Lee Burke is simply James.

Maestro, Don and James..uuhh pretty good!.. or Piccola notte cajun?.. who knows!?

An Italian reader who loves the adventures of a Cajun detective who beats on Italians (actually only the mafiosi, thank God!).

Wow!..that's literature, not only genre. That's the power of literature:  release our brain from the cage of our body, our nation, our skin.

Robicheaux is tender, Robicheaux is tough, Robicheaux knows where the flamingos sleep.

Lots of good books are published now, lots of good stories, but there, on the Bayou Teche, James tells you what he has to tell you, and that is a strong, southern, tasty version of a noir novel.

Cajun, Air America, Gumbo, Contras, New Orleans, Mafia, KKK, Poor White  People, Sonnier Family, Joey Gouza and thousands of  smoky bars where people try to discover the future at the bottom of a glass, here in Dixie. 

The only hope is a strong, powerful, sometimes dum, will to live or joie de vivre or gioia di vivere, it depends on your cage.

An ancient unbreakable force that doesn't fear evil because they are born in the same year...my dear.

Robicheaux is tender, Robicheaux is tough, Robicheaux is as old as the world

Directly form the flames of Vietnam's inferno, he sits on your bed and caresses your face with a . 45 if you touch any of the people he loves. 

Sitting under a tree, the smell of BBQ and a beer, life is not that bad.

I write these words in english, begging your pardon for mistakes you'll surely find ( what do you expect from a spaghetti eater or a paisà?). So why does a paisà write in english?

The answer is: I am quite fed up with word cages. I am a human being, first of all and incidentally, italian born.

In 1999, while  driving from Houston to Austin, I remember a very common car bumper sticker: Don't mess with Texas 

I open another Jax:

- Ehi Dave! My steak has to be well done!! ( what did you expect from a middle class paisà lawyer  like me?)

 Music is in the air.. is it Mark Lanegan or Les Frères Balfa? Are they playing Parle nos a boire or Bleeding muddy water?.. probably both.

Robicheaux is tender, Robicheaux is tough, Robicheaux knows where the flamingos sleep because  his might is as old as the world.

Don't mess with Robicheaux.

(..and now, please pass the salt !)