James Lee Burke is one of the best, but I think his more recent books sometimes rehash the plots of some of the other ones. Crusader's Cross felt like I had read it all before: Dave Robicheaux acts holier than thou, Clete Purcell beats someone up, a shoot out in a hunting cabin on stilts, colorful mob characters, a drunk/insane lady hits on Dave, a serial killer, Dave's wife is kidnapped, the three-legged raccoon . . . .
It is like all the components are on the computer and a program rearranges them, picks new names, and prints it out. Maybe Roald Dahl was right -- these books are all written by the Great Automatic Grammatizator!
