Creole Belle

Languishing in a recovery unit on St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans, Dave Robicheaux is fighting an enemy more insidious than the one who put a bullet in his back a month earlier. The morphine meant to dull his pain is gnawing away at his resolve, playing tricks on his mind, and luring him back into the addict mentality that once threatened to destroy his life and family.

Dave can’t be sure whether his latest visitor is flesh and blood or a spectral reminder of his Louisiana youth. Tee Jolie Melton, a young woman with a troubled past, glides to his bedside and leaves him with an iPod that plays the old country blues song “My Creole Belle.” What Dave doesn’t know is that Tee Jolie disappeared weeks ago, and her sister has turned up dead inside a block of ice floating in the Gulf.

Meanwhile, an oil spill in the Gulf reminds Dave how he lost his father to a rig explosion years ago. As the oil companies continue to risk human lives in pursuit of wealth and power, Dave begins to see links to the Melton sisters, even when no one else shares his suspicions. A resurrection story for the ages, Creole Belle is a “gripping” (People) tale about the known and unknown forces that can corrupt and destroy even the best of men.