The book opens when Dave Robicheaux happens to run into an old acquaintance in New Orleans: Sonny Boy Marsallus. They sip ice tea and shoot the breeze. Privately, Dave wonders why Marsallus has resurfaced; the other man is a gambler who has helped prostitutes escape the life so many times that he finally had to flee to Central America to keep from getting iced by the mob.

Coincidentally enough during those Central American years, Marsallus ran into another friend of Dave's, also on the lam: wild-man Clete Purcel. Clete, Dave's former partner in the New Orleans Police Department, happened to be dodging a murder charge from The Neon Rain.

Anyway, Clete and Marsallus got mixed up in paramilitary operations and had strange adventures that only served to enhance their colorful reputations – especially Marsallus's. According to Clete, Marsallus got shot up during a firefight in El Salvador, and then stood up, apparently unharmed. The Indians consequently thought of him as someone with religious powers: a burning angel. Now Marsallus is back in New Orleans, and he talks Dave into keeping a notebook for him that contains dark secrets about his Latin American activities.

Dave forgets about the notebook upon returning to New Iberia. He's too preoccupied with his job as a detective with the sheriff's department. Plus, adopted daughter Alafair who is now thirteen, breaks his heart a little when she insists he stop calling her pet names like "little guy." Then an older black lady named Bertha Fontenot shows up at the sheriff's department and dumps a whole other sub-plot in Dave's lap: she's about to lose her house and land, and wants Dave, whose father she knew and admired, to help her out.

Bertha, her niece Ruthie Jean, and nephew Luke all live on an acre of land that is part of the Bertrand plantation now owned by Moleen and his brittle, alcoholic wife Julia. One hundred years ago, one of the Bertrands gave the land to the Fonenots' share-cropper ancestors. Now Moleen, pushed hard by Julia, wants to take their land and develop it. It turns out the Fonenots and the Bertrands have a troubling, intertwined destiny: Ruthie Jean and Moleen Bertrand have had a semi-secret affair for years, which has poisoned the heart of Julia Bertrand. But why would Julia push to reclaim the Fontenot land now? Is there something buried on it that she wants?

Dave wades into all this complicated history. But then mobsters murder a local woman who had been dating a guy from New Orleans. It turns out her boyfriend is Marsallus, and the mobsters were looking for his notebook, which Dave still has. Dave and hard-edged deputy Helen Soileau get assigned to the case. Helen, a mannish bisexual and therefore a bit of a cliché, makes Clete Purcel look like a piece of fluff when it comes to police brutality – and Clete's policy towards criminals has always been "bust 'em or smoke 'em."

The dual plotlines continue, building in complexity. Burning Angel is an absorbing read, but not as good for me as some of the other Robicheaux books. Maybe I need a break after this, the seventh one I've read in two weeks. Or maybe it does dip below Burke's usual standard of excellence. The plot seemed too convoluted. Marsallus never becomes the compelling character (like Elrod in In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead or Dixie Lee in Black Cherry Blues) that Burke wanted him to be.

In addition, I notice a weakness in the series: the remote presence of Dave's wife and daughter. What is their purpose in the Robicheaux books? Just to be a vulnerable part of Dave's life that villains can threaten? Just to illuminate him as husband and father? Dave never tells them anything and they have little or no influence on his actions unlike real families in the real world. Burning Angel isn't quite up there with the great Robicheaux novels, but it is available on Amazon through this link: Burning Angel (Dave Robicheaux Mysteries)