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The Burying Field is the second Danny Chaisson novel, and Kenneth Abel uses the sequel to widen the political picture in useful ways. Danny is no longer working directly for the senator, but the parish politics he learned in the first book continue to compromise everything he tries to do as a private attorney. The case here involves a wrongful-death suit against a Louisiana-Cajun industrial concern and a witness who is unlikely to live long enough to testify.
Abel's tired-Louisiana voice is the engine. The book's set pieces (a barbecue at a bayou camp, a deposition that turns into a confrontation, a final-chapter trip to a small-parish funeral) are some of the strongest writing in the early 2000s American crime novel. Darlene Roman is given more interior life than the form usually allows for partners.
Four stars. The series is criminally underread. Read after Cold Steel Rain.
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