Crawfish Mountain

Today on the train ride home I finished Crawfish Mountain by Ken Wells. It was a short book -- about 360 pages and an easy read because most chapters were 8 pages or less. In the past couple of years I've become a big fan of Carl Hiassen and there is a quote on the front of Crawfish Mountain from Tom Wolfe calling Wells the cajun Carl Hiassen. This is generally an accurate statement, but the big difference is that Hiassen fully fleshes out his characters and his endings are strong. Wells presents a wonderful book for 345 pages but jumps to the ending almost out of nowhere. In one of the last scenes a character enters that made me wonder where he had been and why he was even involved at all. Seeing how everything ended there was no need for the character at all.

Overall the book was a nice read in between some of the heavier reads I have been hitting up, including Richard Russo's Bridge of Sighs, and I would recommend for someone looking for a light read who has a love of Louisiana culture. I'm undecided on whether to read another Wells book but I might explore it. I have a lot of books to read so I probably won't get to one soon. I would like to write about Bridge of Sighs because that was one of the best books I have read in a while so we'll see.