A.N. Wilson savours winter crime

Aged well over 80, and with umpteen novels under his belt, James Lee Burke is still the business. His Louisiana detective, Dave Robicheaux, remains more interesting than any of the lost souls he meets. Neither the losing battle against the bottle, nor his continuing overpowering love of sex, can blot out the demonic memories of what he did in Vietnam, when in the company of his still loyal chum Clete Purcel. But they both cling on to the sense that, however ghastly life is, and however awful the criminals they hunt down, there is a moral compass to the universe somewhere out there in the darkness. A Private Cathedral (Orion, £8.99; Tablet price £8.09) is every bit as fresh, as dark and as frightening as the first few novels in the Robicheaux series, which approach the greatness of the Faulkner he so idolises, and which, for those who love Catholic metaphysical angst, must be seen as worthy of being placed beside Mauriac. In this one, the damaged pair make the ­hopeless attempt to stem the flow of mafia-fuelled horror as it impacts on the lives of a vulnerable abducted teenage girl and her lost-soul would-be-rock-idol boyfriend. Plenty of drugs, sex and rock ’n’ roll along the way, not to mention appalling violence and some truly A-list creeps and villains. Plus the glorious evocation of the small city of New Iberia.