A hard rain is gonna fall

James Lee Burke's Dixie City Jam is another great one in the Dave Robicheaux series. As the Powell's reviewer notes, it is one of the scariest as Dave finds himself in the sights of a crazed Nazi sociopath. This series is so good that I make sure to read them in order. If you don't care to do that, try this one or maybe Black Cherry Blues.

One interesting thing to note about the books is the societal fatalism the characters fights against. Robicheaux tends to run into bad people taking advantage of the weak. He tries to stem a seemingly relentless tide of evil that threatens to overwhelm the cops and the regular people. Since it is set in Louisiana, race relations play a key role. Robicheaux's friend and employee Batist often serves to show the plight of blacks in the deep south. Robicheaux's character is fatalistic himself, but his decisions to continue to fight give him an optimistic tinge to his character. This makes the sadness of the books more bearable.

Burke of course is from Louisiana and his descriptions of the life and land are a big part of what is attractive about his books. Here is something he wrote about the city after Katrina.