Dave Robicheaux (pronounced "ROW-bih-show") is a fictional character in a series of mystery novels by American crime writer James Lee Burke.
Dave Robicheaux | |
---|---|
First appearance | The Neon Rain |
Created by | James Lee Burke |
Portrayed by | Alec Baldwin Tommy Lee Jones |
In-universe information | |
Gender | Male |
Occupation | Sheriff's deputy |
Spouse | Nicole Robicheaux Annie Robicheaux Bootsie Robicheaux Molly Robicheaux |
Children | Alafair (adopted) |
Nationality | American |
A former homicide detective in the New Orleans Police Department, Robicheaux lives in New Iberia and works as a detective for the Iberia Parish Sheriff's Office. He is a recovering alcoholic[1] whose demons stem from his service as a U.S. Army infantry lieutenant in the Vietnam War[2] and his impoverished, difficult childhood in rural Louisiana; his mother abandoned the family (and was later murdered), and his father died in an oil drilling-rig explosion.[3]
He still experiences periods of savage depression and nightmares, which are only exacerbated by the murder of his wife Annie Ballard, a social worker.[3] He married a mobster's widow, Bootsie, a lupus sufferer, and adopted the El Salvadorean orphan Alafair (the namesake of Burke's own daughter), after he saves her from the wreckage of an airplane. After Bootsie's death, he weds a strong-minded former Maryknoll nun by the name of Molly. He was also married to a fourth woman before the book series starts - named Nicole.
His best friend is the violent, alcoholic, ex-police officer, private investigator, and bail bondsman Cletus Purcel.
Robicheaux is described as 54 years old in the introduction to the Recorded Books CD edition of Black Cherry Blues (the third book in the series, published in 1989), but in the third track of the audiobook, Robicheaux describes himself as 49 years old. In the fourth audio track, Robicheaux introduces Dixie Lee Pugh, "my freshman roommate at Southwest Louisiana Institute in 1956," which would put his birth year around 1938 if he enrolled when he was 18.
Robicheaux is played by Alec Baldwin in Heaven's Prisoners[4] and by Tommy Lee Jones in In the Electric Mist.[5]
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