James Lee Burke tells a good story. His protagonists are flawed and the bad guys are really bad. It may not be great literature but it holds my interest. I have never been to Louisiana where most of his mysteries are set in Cajun Bayou Country but his descriptions of the people, the culture, the land and the food really make me want to go there. This story had one particularly bad character, a former Irish Republican Army member who reinvented himself as a paid hitman. As always in Burke mysteries the protagonist, Dave Robicheaux, New Iberia LA Sheriffs Detective gets shot at and beaten up a few times before he solves the crime. And as always he offends nearly everyone before he is done.