Oct 22

Returning to an unfinished novel is a little like catching up with an old friend. While the publishing world seems to be in turmoil, and I still have no idea when the third Bradford Fairfax novel is going to come out, I’ve been getting on with the fourth episode, Bon Ton Roulez, a Cajun term meaning roughly, “Let the good times roll.” In the new book, Bradford finds himself in New Orleans not long after Hurricane Katrina, where some very nasty politicians are cooking up a scheme to displace the low-income citizens trying to return and pick up the pieces of their lives. When I visited New Orleans in the spring of 2006, some eight months after the disaster, I was left with an indelible impression of the city in ruins and the sense of loss the people were facing. That impression is strongly making itself felt in this book.