James Lee Burke writes so well that when other reviewers call him a fantastic novelist, so far above the prevailing standards, there really is no room for doubt.
Having devoured every book James Lee Burke has written, it is still the Dave Robicheaux novels that remain a firm favourite.
Creole Belle is the latest and in it, Dave Robicheaux and his best friend Clete Purcel have to put their lives on the line once again to keep their family safe and rescue a young Cajun woman others say is dead, but who Robicheaux receives as a visitor in a morphine-induced dream.
The first paragraph of the book shows the wonderful way Burke can draw in a reader, hooking them for the next 530 pages.
"For the rest of the world, the season was still fall, marked by cool nights and the gold-green remnants of summer. For me, down in South Louisiana, in the Garden District of New Orleans, the wetlands that lay far beyond my hospital window had turned to winter, one characterised by stricken woods that were drained of water and strung with a web of grey leaves and dead air vines that had wrapped themselves as tightly as a cord around the trees."
In the book, Purcel finds he has a daughter, an assassin whom he witnesses killing a bad man. Purcel does not know exactly how bad the man is until he eventually hires his daughter as assistant to his private detective business and probes her past.
Robicheaux's adopted daughter Alafair has grown up and is working but the strange set of pets accumulated in earlier novels remain. This book is Burke at his best in unveiling the seedier side of Louisiana. The large gulf oil spill features throughout the book, making it current.
The terrifying theme of Say You're Sorry is well explored by author Michael Robotham. When Piper Hadley and her friend Tash went missing, there was a huge police search, but they were never found.
Tash escaped after reaching breaking point at the abuse their captor had inflicted on them, promising to come back for Piper.
Clinical psychologist Joe O'Loughlin and his companion, former cop Vincent Ruiz, force the police to reopen the case after Joe finds a connection with the missing girls while being called in to assess the possible killer of a couple in their own home.
The ending seems so predictable when it is revealed who the kidnapper is but Robotham hides it so well that the identity comes as a late surprise.
Both books are big reads and both have issues that will be difficult for some parents to deal with.
Dene Mackenzie is a Dunedin writer.
