Murder in the pickle factory

Lee Burke is back, with his protagonist Detective Dave Robicheaux of the New Iberia PD. Long-time readers of this series will know that a mystery surrounds the last years of Robicheaux's mother's life. Here he finally finds out that she was a hooker and was drowned in a mud puddle by two crooked police constables. As with all of this author's work, however, things are not what they seem. The more our hero delves into the circumstances of his mother's life, the murkier the scenario becomes. Aided, and quite a lot of the time, hindered by his partner, Clete Purcell, Robicheaux goes through a purgatory of the soul in his efforts to unravel the enigma surrounding the event. Dark forces are at play, prominent men - maybe even the state governor - are involved, and a psychotic hit-man named Johnny Remeta is paying rather too much attention to Robicheaux's young adopted daughter Alafair. Although nominally in the crime fiction genre, Lee Burke's novels transcend such a bracketing, being highly atmospheric slices of Southern Americana. Think Faulkner, with equal depth of character but clearer resolution of motive and plot.