Skip to main content

Book Review: Creole Belle

     Hey, everyone. I have recently read an excellent book which I'd like to discuss. The title is Creole Belle and the author is James Lee Burke. It is one of those rare novels which I would give a rating of 5 stars out of 5. It is one of a series of books about the Louisiana police detective named Dave Robicheaux.
     Dave's specialty is homicide. Not just the solving of it, but the occasional enactment of it. Ha, ha. At the opening of the story he is laying in a hospital, recovering from wounds incurred during a shootout. During his convalescence he has a visit from a lovely young woman he knows, named Tee Jolie. In his morphine-induced tranquility he doesn't know if she is real or not. She tells him that she and her sister, Blue, are being held captive on an island. She even leaves Dave an I-Pod with some of her own recordings on it. Of course, Dave immediately sets out to find the girl when he recovers.
     Clete Purcell is Dave's best friend. Clete is an alcoholic, semi-nutcase, lovable ex-Marine. Dave needs his help with the Tee Jolie case, but Clete has major problems of his own. He has discovered that he has an illegitimate daughter running around New Orleans and New Iberia. That is not so bad. The fact that she is a contract killer complicates things. Clete tries to get her out of the hit-man life without telling Gretchen (Horowitz) that she is his kid. Clete actually needs Dave's assistance more than Dave needs his. Clete's daughter is making enemies among the criminal overlords of the Gulf Coast. Soon, the girl is offered a choice; kill Dave and his wife and his daughter, plus Clete, or else her mother will die a horrible death.
      Detective Robicheaux feels that the oil spill in the Gulf is a catalyst in a series of murders. There is a cover-up by wealthy landowners, politicians and at least one crooked cop. Alexis Dupree and his son, Pierre, are on Dave's short list of suspects for murder, corruption and the abduction of the two sisters mentioned previously. Alexis appears to be tied to ancient war crimes. Pierre's wife, the lovely Varina, may be a family victim, or the brains behind the criminals.
     This is a long book, but certainly not boring. The climactic ending will thrill you, when Clete and Dave have to take the law into their own hands and clean out a wicked nest of thugs. I highly recommend this one.
    From the author's green retreat, I'm CE Wills.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The White Chicken Mystery

    The other night I happened to come home very late. It was the middle of the night and I was driving up a steep mountain road. Near the top I saw something white in my headlights. It was standing in the other lane, standing very still. It was a large white chicken. It was probably a rooster because I thought I could see his comb as I whizzed by at my customary pace. He never moved a muscle. This is weird, don't you think?      After a couple of days to consider this phenomenon, I have come up with some plausible answers for his bizarre behavior. 1. He was conflicted whether or not he should cross the road. 2. He was feeling cocky and decided to play chicken with the traffic. 3.He was being hen-pecked at home and had decided to end it all. 4. Someone had egged him on to do it. 5. He had just watched the movie Fantastic Four and decided to try to stop a truck the way that Ben Grimm did on the bridge. 6. He had driven himself crazy wondering if ...

Batman Lives In Washington, DC

    Hey, everyone. I just read an interesting article on Washington Post.Com by Mike Rosenwald. It was titled Who Is the Route 29 Batman? This is a true story about a guy that the cops pulled over. The guy was driving a black Lamborghini with Batman plates. There were yellow Batman symbols on the doors. They had a video from the police car that showed him being pulled over. He was wearing a Bat-suit which he said cost him $5000. His gig is that he visits sick children in area hospitals and hands out Bat-Toys and Bat-books to cheer the kids up.     His name is Lenny B. Robinson and he says that the 'B' stands for Batman. He is perfectly sane and is just a good dude trying to make a difference. He is a self-made millionaire and is currently having a duplicate of the Batmobile custom-made at a cost of $250,000.    It was a hoot, watching the cops having their pictures made with the Bat Guy. Someone asked him where Robin was and he said that the boy won...

Cake Is Better Than Swords

Hey, everyone. On Thanksgiving, we had a get-together here at The Author's Green Retreat. One lady brought a cake which I wanted to show you. It had the look of a Roman Coliseum about it. Inside it was just as decadent...and fun, as ancient Rome. When I cut it open, homemade marshmallow cream began to ooze out in several spots, running over the chocolate cake and peanut butter icing. It is best served warm so the cream is fluid. Very tasty. The same lady, and her children, are people who have played a lot of Skyrim. They gave me some pointers on the game because I am having problems with it. They taught me how to fast travel, and a ton of other things, but the main thing was the armor and clothing problem. This is a little embarrassing, but let me explain. Okay. For several weeks when I played, I would enter towns and everyone I met would comment on my nakedness. I would select a tunic and shoes, whatever, go back around people and they would say something about it. I guess I w...