Let's get this out of the way before we go any further: There's no way James Lee Burke could write anything less than a great story. Burke's stories are the zenith of crime fiction, and if thriller fans aren't reading his stories 100 years from now, I'll be glad I'm not there.

Although he has written other excellent stories, it's the Dave Robicheaux series that has cemented Burke's reputation. A washed-out New Orleans cop, Robicheaux is a recovering alcoholic with an occasional relapse who has seen his last two marriages end in the tragic deaths of his wives. One of them was murdered; the other died of disease.

At the start of his latest story, Robicheaux is living in a small house on the bayou, alone but for a cat and his three-legged raccoon. He has left his work as a PI and gone back to work at his old job as a deputy sheriff.

Dave has a lot of past, and it often rears its head in unexpected and violent ways. Back in 1958, a 20-year-old Dave and his brother Jimmie were rescued from a sandbar surrounded by sharks in Galveston Bay by a pretty young woman named Ida. Ida wasn't her real name, and she was a prostitute - none of which stopped Jimmie from falling for her. As they were about to leave the country, Jimmie beat up the girl's pimp and Ida disappeared in what was thought to have been a violent end.

Decades later, Dave has started asking questions about Ida that quickly bring an attack from two crooked cops, one of whom claims to have seen Ida after her disappearance. It becomes apparent to Dave that the questions he has been asking are making a wealthy family nervous. The Chalons family has had roots in Louisiana for centuries, and the thought that they would have something to do with the decades-old disappearance of a whore is easy for many to shrug off.

There's an evil that emanates from the Chalonses though, and in particular, son Valentine, a television newsman. It's an evil that an old cop like Robicheaux intuits from experience. Valentine Chalons is the type who, from lack of conscience and sense of power, can make other's lives miserable without seeming to bear the blame. It's just the type of cruel ability that gets Dave's hackles up.

But there's a bigger problem in the form of a serial killer targeting women and taunting police by the way the bodies are left. One such victim is Honaria Chalons, Val's promiscuous and tainted sister. After she was savagely killed, the assassin carved the Chalons coat of arms in her scalp.

It isn't long before Valentine Chalons has worked out a way to insinuate in the media that Dave had been having an affair with his sister and should be considered as her murderer. Chalons also impugns Dave's reputation by using Dave's recently begun affair with a woman named Molly Boyle, who works for the Catholic church and whom many identify as a nun. You don't mess around with a nun in southern Louisiana without everyone getting up in arms.

As Dave tries with poor success to stay sober in the midst of this emotional onslaught, he has to deal with his brother getting in on the investigation, crooked cops, mobsters, hired killers and the violent but loyal unpredictability of his friend Clete Purcell. Purcell will do anything for Dave, and that often leads to even bigger problems, but he does manage to track down the man who was Ida's pimp in Florida before withstanding a gruesome beating.

The plot speeds up as pieces of the puzzle start to fit - even as more questions arise.

Opening a Dave Robicheaux novel is like opening a door onto the bayou or the streets of New Orleans. Burke's descriptive powers are poetic. You can hear pecans bouncing off tin roofs and nutria screaming in the swamps, smell the fecund rot of vegetation and fish on the bayou, and chicory coffee and beignets in the French Quarter.

Better yet, you are placed not only into the heads, but in the souls of the more realistic characters you'll meet in fiction. Killers for hire, alcoholics, drug-sunk whores and effeminate old southerners without a shred of ethics to match their sense of entitlement are only some of the thoroughly realized creations to meet here. With his latest, Burke once again affirms why he is one of the best writers in any genre.

Peter Mergendahl reviews thrillers weekly in Weekend@Home. He lives in Lakewood.