I’ve always loved Halloween; it’s one of my most sacred holidays. As a child, I liked the costumes and candy, and as an adult too, taking my children out like my parents took me, but now I am more into observing. I enjoy the costume contests and adult Halloween parties and the horror movies I can catch on cable.

It’s fitting that early this morning I just finished reading James Lee Burke’s In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead. I found it unique from other Dave Robicheaux novels, with a mystical, haunting edge. As a lover of the South and all things Confederate, I liked the facts from Confederate history he wove into the novel. Only once, through the voice of General Hood, did he make the mistake of tying the South’s cause into that of slavery. That comment seemed to be token, and slightly out of context with the tone and plot of the novel. Anyway, this was a good read.