Crawfish Mountain
A Novel
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- $5.99
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
Ken Wells’s highly acclaimed picaresque Catahoula Bayou novels introduced “one of the most compelling voices in fiction of the last decade” (Los Angeles Times). Now Wells is back, writing about his favorite subject–the exotic, beleaguered Louisiana wetlands–in a sharp, rollicking tale of corporate corruption and political shenanigans. The fight over one man’s tract of sacred marsh fronts a deeper story of our place in the environment and our obligations to it.
Justin Pitre’s marsh island, a legacy of his trapper grandfather, is a scenic rival to anything in the Everglades, and he has promised to protect it from all harm. But he hasn’t counted on oil bigwig Tom Huff’s plans to wreck his bayou paradise by ramming a pipeline through it. When cajolery doesn’t sway Justin to sign the land over, Huff turns to darker methods. But Justin and his spirited wife, Grace, prove to be formidable adversaries–and the game is on.
Into the fray comes the charismatic Cajun governor Joe T. Evangeline, who seems more interested in chasing skirts than saving Louisiana’s eroding coast. The Guv, though, is a man on the edge, upended by a midlife crisis and torn between a secret political obligation to Big Oil and the persuasive powers of Julie Galjour, a feisty environmentalist. Julie is clearly out to reform more than the Guv’s ecopolitics, but will his tragicomic Big Oil deals wreck both his career and his chances with the brash and beautiful activist?
As Justin and Grace battle to stop this Big Oil assault, the plot thickens–and the Guv becomes snared in the web. Featuring a gumbo of eccentrics and lowlifes, a kidnapping, a sexy snitch, a toxic-waste-dumping scheme, a boat chase, and a fishing trip gone horribly awry, Crawfish Mountain, spiced with Ken Wells’s keen eye for locale, showcases his adventurous storytelling.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Wells follows his Catahoula Bayou trilogy with this entertaining novel about imperiled Louisiana wetlands. Tom Huff, regional vice president of Standard of Texas Oil Company "Big Tex" in fictional Chacahoula Parish wants to route a pipeline through the treasured tract of bayou that Justin Pitre inherited from his grandfather. With the help of Juke Charpentier a bully with a Big Tex expense account Huff will do anything to gain access to Justin's land. Compounding the threat are U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' plans to dredge a shipping channel and Huff's secret, illegal dumping of toxic waste in the bayou. Drawn into the center of this morass is Gov. Joe T. Evangeline, who, two years after his wife's death, is having a hard time keeping up his bon vivant image. Julie Galjour, a smart and attractive attorney with the Department of Environmental Conservation, however, is determined to persuade the Guv to make the right decisions and also, perhaps, to draw him out of his malaise. The plot's many wild turns and feel-good ending may remind readers of Carl Hiaasen's novels. Wells is a native of southern Louisiana, and his love of Cajun culture and its patois, food and ties to the landscape shines throughout.