If I’ve done my research correctly, it is now fifteen years and twelve books since James Lee Burke introduced us to Dave Robicheaux, then Lieutenant Dave Robicheaux of the New Orleans Police Department. In between, the author has given us a few volumes of shorter stories and a handful of excursions with Texas lawyer, Billy Bob Holland. To my mind it’s the most consistent and valuable catalogue of contemporary crime fiction writing, and one of the richest veins in modern American literature, though the literary establishments on both sides of the big pond might baulk at that second claim.

I was won over to Dave Robicheaux with the elegantly titled In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead, indeed how could anyone fail to be attracted by such a magnificent title. After that it was a quick rush back to The Neon Rain, Heaven’s Prisoners, and Black Cherry Blues, and impatient waits for each new Robicheaux, including Jolie Blon’s Bounce. A good time then to take stock. Now there were some erstwhile critics down in London a couple of month’s back who seemed desperate to persuade me that both author and character were over the hill. It was a view I resisted with equal determination as a fan, rather than a critic. And perhaps as a fan, it would be difficult to subscribe to such condemnations even if they had even the slightest shred of validity. It is unthinkable. Just as unthinkable as deserting QPR for Fulham.

On a thirteenth outing a degree of ennui might be acceptable. Perhaps, Dave’s nocturnal resorts to rides in the truck could be curtailed in favour of letting the guy have a good night’s sleep. But to predict the decline of the series on such flimsy grounds is to lose sight of all the wondrously good things about Jolie Blon’s Bounce, and for that matter all the other titles in this extraordinary series. Louisiana is probably the most colourful of all the US states with its crosscutting ethnic composition, and its unique blend of radical and conservative political and social culture. Add to that the geography, and it’s a heady brew. And no one reproduces that rich diversity and all its conflicting tapestry better than JLB. If he were a playright, nobody would take the slightest notice of Tennessee Williams and his streetcar.

Jolie Blon’s Bounce is actually a Cajun number, written and performed by a young Black musician and hustler, Tee Bobby Hulin. When a young white girl is raped and murdered, Tee Bobby’s prints are found on a beer can at the scene, and her white boyfriend is only too happy to finger Hulin as the culprit. Dave has no choice but to arrest him for the crime, though he has real doubts about casting Hulin, despite his obvious faults, as either a rapist or a killer. In his search for the truth, Robicheaux delves in to a local history in which Tee Bobby’s ancestry among the poor Black plantation workers is intertwined with that of his lawyer, the rich but radical Perry LaSalle, latest progeny of the plantantion owning White aristocracy.

But the cast of characters that step off the pages are as wickedly rich as the Louisiana backcloth, and are too numerous to be identified in a single review. Just read it yourselves. I don’t think you’ll find too much evidence of terminal decline in either Robicheaux or his scriptwriter. Both seem to have a good few years and a lot more stories to tell. At least I very much hope that is the case.