Woody La Rivière is an independent oilman, liar, and opportunist who discovers the plot to assassinate JFK while searching for his estranged drug addicted wife during ten days during the rainless summer of 1963 in Cajun Louisiana.
In the first book, the protagonist seeks to rescues and reconciles with his wife with a mix of investigative techniques and dirty tricks against his advesaries.
In the second book, Woody uncovers that the mastermind of the assassination is Carlos Marcello, a mafia chieftain.
The books utilize the underlying structure of the Greek myth of Theseus, whose adventures include probing a labyrinth, killing a symbolic minotaur, and escaping with the heroine. Other mythic traditions from the South are also intertwined including Uncle Remus Tales, biblical parables, and Cajun/Creole folk history.
The novel is in the tradition of James Lee Burke’s ROBICHEAUX SERIES, about a Cajun detective in a noir detective thriller.
The writing utilizes the zen writing techniques developed by Robert Olen Butler, who writes about “the moment to moment sensual experience” of his characters and identifies how these experiences affect their yearnings and catalyzes their actions in his book, From Where You Dream (2005).