rec160: The Tin Roof Blowdown, by James Lee Burke

NOVEL

Publisher: Orion, 2007

I’ve been hunting the Dave Robicheux crime series in second-hand book shops ever since I received a copy of Creole Belle. It blew my socks off: starting directly after the preceding book, the details were seamlessly inserted to allow me to follow the yarn and enjoy the adept characterisation and descriptions of Louisiana. The history and social layers of the state infuse the series. This title, a recent find set in New Orleans during and immediately after Katrina and then Rita, is one of the best so far. The storms’ devastation, a shooting of looters who picked the wrong house, and Robicheaux’s family under threat: it’s a compelling mix deftly balanced. Robicheux, a Vietnam veteran clinging to sobriety, remarks after a nightmare that he thought he would ‘never again have to witness the wide-scale suffering of innocent civilians, nor the betrayal and abandonment of our countrymen when they need us most. But that was before Katrina’. Still gives me goosebumps.