Meet Dave Robicheaux

I was on the second leg of a long-term work assignment that would take me through Louisiana, Mississippi and parts of Southeastern Texas. I was eager to learn more about the area, having begun a love affair with a region I had just met and was considering a full transfer and move.

Robicheaux and I crossed paths innocently as I was searching for a way to alleviate the midweek boredom that sets in when work travel keeps you from home weeks at a time. My weekends were filled with sightseeing trips but evenings were spent alone in my hotel room. I wasn't a fan of many television shows and had read every book I had packed in my car.

Dave Robicheaux was a detective with the Iberia Parish Sheriff's Department, where he was raised, after spending years with the New Orleans Police Department. I had recently driven through his town on my way to Avery Island to visit the Tabasco Factory and Jungle Gardens and attended New Iberia's annual Louisiana Sugar Cane Festival. The coincidence caught me off guard and I had to get to know this man.

Through the next several months, Robicheaux and I spent many nights together. I learned of his childhood spent in poverty, being raised by his father after his mother left them. Before he headed to Vietnam, Dave Robicheaux had begun an affair with the bottle that would control his life for years, costing him his first marriage and endangering his career with the NOPD.

He became sober with the help of Alcoholics Anonymous, regularly attending meetings but slipping from time to time. Robicheaux had lived through much heartache by the time we met and violence found a way of inserting itself into his life.

The South I had learned about in school mostly consisted of bullet points in history, similar to those portrayed in "Forrest Gump". Through Dave Robicheaux's eyes I saw a Louisiana and a Deep South I never knew existed. I had dated a former NOPD officer who once told me he both loved and hated the city. His characterizations of organized crime families in New Orleans were confirmed and built upon during my evenings with Robicheaux. Dave described the crack infestation of New Orleans in the 1980s and the far-reaching social effects it had on, in his words, "The Great Whore of Babylon".

When I left Louisiana, I didn't leave Dave Robicheaux behind. I introduced him to my mother who has become as much a fan as I. My man and I watched him brought to life by Tommy Lee Jones in the direct-to-DVD release of "In the Electric Mist" in 2009.

The Dave Robicheaux series of crime novels is the work of Edgar Award-winning novelist James Lee Burke. Start at the beginning with The Neon Rain, published in 1987 and follow the evolution of Dave Robicheaux through The Tin Roof Blowdown, set in immediate post-Katrina New Orleans and Swan Peak. I'm eagerly anticipating the July 2010 release of The Glass Rainbow, the 18th edition of the Dave Robicheaux series.

Sources: My personal library, James Lee Burke