Great Fun Down on the Bayou

Creole Belle [by] James Lee Burke

New York; Simon & Schuster [2012]

978-1-4516-4813-3; $27.99

Our hero, Dave Robicheaux, is fighting to recover his health after a gunman put a bullet in his back a month ago.  The morphine is also recalling a fierce addictive behavior that used to be his before years of 12-step programs and sheer resolve put that on the back burner for him.  He is convinced that singer Tee Jolie Melton came to see him, and put some songs on his iPod.

Then he learns that Tee Jolie’s sister Blue has been found dead in a floating block of ice in the Gulf.  Dave resolves to find Tee Jolie and to learn what happened to Blue.  His best friend, Clete Purcel, decides to help him. 

However, Clete is also involved in his own troubles. He’s discovered that one of his one-night stands had produced a child, unbeknownst to him, who may be working as a contract killer named Caruso.  She has come gunning for some of New Orleans’ worst. When she drops in on Clete, they decide they really like each other, no matter what happened in the past, and he takes her – when she’s not a contract killer, her name is Gretchen – on as an assistant of sorts.

There are several members of a family with deep historic ties to the area who keep cropping up in their investigation.  Varina, who is the daughter of Jesse LeBoeuf, an old Cajun swampman, has the hots for Clete, although she is still married to Rick Dupree, who has piles of money and a big southern mansion on a neighboring bayou.  He has enormous power, and oars stuck in the economy everywhere, especially in oil and religion.  His father/grandfather – the relationship may be a bit blurred in the family history – claims to have been a prisoner at one of the Nazi concentration camps, but Dave sees him as about as opposite a person as he can be to the persona he has invented, and believes him to have been a Nazi and one of the guards.  Meanwhile, Jesse LeBoeuf has shown his true colors once again – he’s one of those southerners who just has to taste the flesh of a black girl, even while he hates them, and tries to destroy their menfolk.  He takes his latest rage out on a female deputy in the Sheriff’s department.  And this whole family seems to be behind an assortment of good ol’ boys, obvious crooks and  perverts, and religious fanatics, as well as oil impresarios, whose current activity with the oil spill in the Gulf, remind Dave of his father’s death on a rig many years before.  Dave’s daughter Alafair makes friends with Gretchen, and plan to do a documentary film on a show coming to their town.

Everything rather comes to a head at the end of the book, when our two galloping justice-seekers take on the family at its enclave next to the bayou. It’s rough and bloody, and very much what Clete and Dave have been known to do in the past, although this one has a vast and overarching theatricality all its own.  Makes you happy they’re on our side! Typical Burke and absolutely recommended (if you can stomach the gore.) ~ lss-r

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Library book.

Easy Come -- Easy Go -- NOT!

Die Easy [by] Zoë Sharp

New York; Pegasus Crime [2013]

978-1-60598-400-1; $25.95

Charlie Fox and her boss, and former lover, Sean Meyer, are working for a wealthy American businessman, who will be hobnobbing with other wealthy businesspeople, politicians, and sports stars at a fundraiser for cleaning up in the aftermath of Katrina.  There is noticeable tension in the group, partially because of all the bodyguards who are there, exercising their muscles and strutting in front of each other, with weapons only slightly out of sight.

There is tension between Charlie and Sean, too.  He had been her Sergeant when she had been in the British Army.  She had washed out finally, after 4 men in her unit gang-raped her.  Sean had not known about that until later, and he didn’t totally understand what it meant.  One of those men, Vic Morton, is also a bodyguard for one of the principles in this story, and he takes many opportunities to harass Charlie and show her up as being incompetent.

In most cases, Sean would have probably noticed, but Sean has not been himself lately.  He was shot and in a very long coma, from which he is not completely recovered.  It has affected him physically and mentally.  He is not as sharp as he once was.  He’s not “on top of things.”  His memory is shot full of holes.  He has incomplete memories of his army days.  He knows that he knows Charlie, but he doesn’t seem to comprehend that he had quite an intimate relationship with her, including having fathered a child with her.  He has a relationship with Vic which is also piecemeal – he remembers him from the army, but is not sure about him as a bodyguard, just as he unsure about Charlie.  This becomes extremely important, as it turns out.

The first time things seem to go wrong is when Charlie and Sean’s principle – the man they are body guarding – gets into a helicopter for a flyover the city of New Orleans to see the still extant damage.  They are actually shot at by a RPG, which destroys the tail rotor, causing the helicopter to autogyro into the ground, where it breaks up and a fire starts.  One of the bodyguards gets killed.  All of the living people do get out of the plane in a timely fashion, even though some of them are very badly hurt.  They find out that those after them are locals – the person threatening them unless they give themselves up to him has a Cajun accent!

Later, there is a real scene:  hijackers take over the paddle wheel casino party boat they are on, separating the bodyguards from their clients.  Others come on board after the hijacking, with plans involving C4, although half of their supply has been surreptiously dumped overboard by Charlie, as she fights the hijackers with two of the principles and Sean behind the scenes.  The whole scene makes quite a splash in the papers, when the boat is grounded when the blowing up is compromised.  A lot of people are killed or injured, and Charlie gets a much clearer picture of both Sean and Vic.  Fortunately, Sean gets a clearer picture of Charlie and Vic as well, which is why things come out as well as they do in the end.

This is truly one of my favorite series, and Charlie is in great form in this book.  She is so clearly in command of everything because of the training she has had from Sean, and her inner dialogue as she hopes for his recovery – and to what extent it will be, is just great. Highly recommended. ~ lss-r

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