Creole Belle by James Lee Burke

I love the way James Lee Burke describes Louisiana, a place he clearly loves. You feel like you're down in the bayou, surrounded by the colors, the heat, the mist rolling in off the river. And I love the characters of Dave and his best friend Clete, two weary warriors whose luck may soon run out. At the end of the last book in this series, The Glass Rainbow, we were left wondering whether Dave and Clete had survived a nasty ambush. Creole Belle opens several months later, with Dave in the hospital, still recovering from his wounds and Clete having found the daughter he had been searching for for years--only to discover that she is a hit woman for the mob. Clete tries to turn her life around while Dave tries to discover what happened to the missing Tee Jolie Melton. Soon, the boys have stumbled onto an insidious conspiracy, which puts them and their loved ones in great danger. As I said at the beginning, I love the characters and love the writing. However, I wish there were not quite so much violence in these books. And this one seemed to have more "ranting" (ie, against the big oil companies)than necessary. Though the oil companies have done a lot of environmental damage to Lousiana, it's true, the "lectures" just kind of threw off the momentum of the story. Still, I can't wait to see what happens next.