James Lee Bourke, one of my favourite crime writers, has a brilliant series set in New Iberia in the US South, and another set in Montana. Both series are earthy and very much warts and all. He also has a very busy forum, where he answers readers questions, etc.
Burke is beyond brilliant , and having met the man , he's highly approachable and down to earth and once you get him rolling will discuss literature with you until your ears fall off.
And I find it amazing that his first work was turned down repeatedly by quite a number of publishers.
Have YOU got your " Robicheaux's Bait Shop" hat/t-shirt? ( chuckle).
And he quite captures the flavors of southern Louisiana in a way that nobody else does. As I stated in another post refering to him , his work is texturally accurate and highly complex and richly evocative , when he speaks of a breeze coming up the Bayou Teche you can almost feel/smell it.
And he's BEEN to these places , I ran one of my standard tests on him , he knows the difference between Plaquemines ( the town) and Plaquemines Parish.
And perhaps he hits so close to home with me in both the series because I was born in Texas and raised mostly in Mont. and Wyo, and have shirt-tail relatives all over s.e.Texas and southern Louisiana.
Makes me homesick for the smell of magnolias and honeysuckle , real crawfish boils , zydeco in knocked together out of plywood sheet bars where when the music starts the only way you're stting down is if you're dead or in a wheelchair and the folks in wheelchairs are out boogieing on the dance floor and the dead guy is propped up at the bar with a drink , along with the damp redolent air and quiet solitude of the Atchafalaya.
B.