Robicheaux and Purcell Head to Montana for a Summer of High Peaks Fishing!

Swan Peak: A Dave Robicheaux Novel by James Lee Burke
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

JLB has moved to Missoula, Mt permanently but used to move to New Iberia in the winter. This is the first book in the series in which the setting is the high mountains near the Montana-Idaho border. The descriptions of Montana are as detailed as his Louisiana details and the characters are as well drawn, though they lack the familiarity with which he is able to speak of the New Iberian natives. Still, these characters are three dimensional and his chief baddie is a Louisiana transplant.

No matter where he and Clete Purcell go there are always jams for them to get into and it is no different here in the Swan Valley. They are spending the summer at a friend's ranch with Molly and intending to fish all vacation. The murder of a young college boy on the mountain overlooking the ranch manages to throw a monkey wrench into their copacetic plans. Purcell, as usual, finds himself involved with not one but two women, whom he'd be better off ignoring. His relationships as always get him and Dave in trouble and mess up the investigation of this and several other seemingly unrelated murders

With all kinds of miscreants interacting with each other or trying to avoid each other the plot thickens and ends with a open pit, several armed men and several others on the edge without weapons or escape. Or so it would seem.

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Robicheaux and Purcel Find Trouble in Post-Katrina New Iberia

The Tin Roof Blowdown: A Dave Robicheaux Novel by James Lee Burke
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Haven't been back to NOLA since Katrina, until reading this installment of Robicheaux and Purcel on the case of the murder of two young black looters. New Iberia law enforcement has been called in to help with the various crimes committed during the chaotic aftermath of the storms, Katrina and Rita. As usual, nothing is simple--blood diamonds, a made guy and his wife, a couple whose daughter was traumatized by a gang rape, a strange guy who doesn't seem to have a past but keeps turning up to threaten Dave and his family. All this amidst the devastation of a large swath of the Louisiana Gulf Coast. It is interesting to see how the fictional Alafair's novel writing develops, since the real Alafair, Burke's daughter, became a novelist.

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