This is an excellent series. I'm not reading it in order, but that doesn't make a big difference. I listen on CD and the narrator, Will Patton, does an excellent job. In this story, Dave and his ex-partner are in the NW and they get dragged into an investigation. It's a quite involved storyline. His narration is detailed and paints pictures. Sometimes I wish he would move along, but I can't think of another writer who does that well enough for me not to skip. You can tell Burke is a very smart man from the way he has an excellent handle on the English language. He doesn't write above people so they don't understand, but you will generally find a word or two here and there that you don't come across too often. His turn of phrase is unique. Swan Peak is perhaps the most complex of the "Dave Robicheaux" novels with the author juggling several sub-plots around and managing to bring them all together into a perfect ending. There are characters you'll like and some you'll hate, and even a few you will change your mind about before the final pages are reached. His words have a way of capturing and captivating the reader, luring them into a scene as if they were living it to the fullest extent. His characters are always true to life, rather than caricatures that are generally found in other books by different authors. For me, Dave Robicheaux isn't a fictional creation, but rather a friend that I get to visit with once a year and play some catch-up with. In another sense, Robicheaux is "everyman" with his strengths and weaknesses, attempting to live a good life while battling the evil that seeks to erupt from just beneath the surface of humanity and envelope those within its reach.

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