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Dave Robicheaux is back et les bon temps rouler encore! Well, not quite, as you might guess, since every time Dave starts to look into the past he inevitably uncovers enough shallowly-buried embarrassments to ensure that he'll get hired or fired from the New Iberia PD, pound someone who's offended him, get beat up, or let his buddy Clete Purcell do both (or either), go on a bender, subject everyone, including the reader, to more soul searching than a Cathar facing the Inquisition, and of course get married. To a nun. I'm not kidding, but kidding apart, this may be the best Robichaux in some time.

Things actually happen, there's a bit of cause and effect, and it even gets pieced together not too convincingly in the end, complete with race against the clock to save the new bride. It all starts with Dave's identical but Streak-less twin wanting to chase down the Galveston hooker he nearly saved from a life of sin back in 1958. I was sure there was a Glen Campbell song in there somewhere, to complement 'It Wasn't God Who Made Honky-Tonk Angels'. I'm still trying to figger tings out, me, just exactly how ol' Dave, Clete et al are s'posed to be now. Folks age at diff'rent paces in the Bayou, dem. I'm also trying to figure how many other close Robicheaux family members are lurking somewhere in the swamps. And if there's anyone in Louisiana who didn't have a rough time in Vietnam. Having said all that, this one comes as close as Burke ever will to being fun, which is what this series was like early on. A welcome return.