Voodoo River by Robert Crais

Amazing what a cruise will do to West Coast Don's reading output. I better quit stalling and get one up there.

Actress Jodi Taylor has never denied being adopted and now would like to know something about her birth parents, mostly about possible medical issues, so her manager hires Elvis Cole to go to Louisiana, meet up with the local lawyer on the job, and try to find her birth parents. Which he does. Problem is, he's been lied to. It's got nothing to do with health....she's being blackmailed.

A local slug of a PI has turned up something in Jodi's history that could net him a chunk of change from The Enquirer and gets Jodi to fork over some real money to protect the secret. You see, Jodi Taylor is a genuine TV star of America's highest rated family show and the secrets surrounding her family and birth would not be well received by the show's sponsors or the studio brass.

Elvis is really pissed that he was lied to and Jodi decides to go back to Louisiana with Cole and see just who her birth mother is. When she see her birth mother, she decides on the spot to meet her and learns all about the family secret. Her birth mother is married to the local sheriff who is under the thumb of the resident gangster because that slug PI took the info to this jerk for more money. As Jodi learns the details behind her birth and adoption, she takes pity on her mother and asks Elvis if he would do something to get these 2 decent people out from under this local criminal. Elvis, ever the sucker for a movie star, agrees to help.

Elvis needs to find out just what this bum is involved in and needs some help, bringing his partner, Joe Pike. With a little help of the local lawyer, an underground newspaper reporter, and a very well protected hispanic activist, Cole learns that an underling to the big cheese in human trafficking into Louisiana is trying to break out on his own, bringing people in through the that local scumbag and his old boss ain't happy about the competition.

Elvis hatches a plot to get all 3 bad guys together to basically kill each other off cuz they all hate each other, getting Jodi's birth mother and husband out of their problem. But this isn't The A Team and the plan doesn't come together leaving Joe Pike and a black op sharpshooter for that hispanic activist clean up the mess.

I'm a big fan of Crais. After reading The First Rule, I thought I venture back into the early novels and my local library had this 1995 book on the shelf. His books are easy to get into, well plotted, satisfying in the eventual demise of the bad guys. Cole and Pike are a couple of my favorite continuing characters. Cole is the cynical wise cracking LA PI (who usually manages to get some girl in the process) and Pike is just downright creepy, but productive when the shit hits the fan. Notice I don't give away Jodi's secret. You'll have to find out that for yourself. It's a doozy.

East Coast Don