Bayou City Burning is the first in a series of father/daughter detective stories, the Harry and Dizzy Lark Books, by D.B. Borton. It’s set in Houston with an authentic sense of place complete with the stench of Texas oil refineries, arrow-straight stretches of highway, and crooked politics. As a child of the sixties, I appreciated the timeframe as well—complete with JFK’s promise to put a man on the moon. D.B. Borton writes fictional themes based on actual events and people. The story is what I’d expect from old TV series during the 1960s.
Harry Lark is a bit of a ne’er-do-well P.I. He’s divorced and paying for his daughter’s braces, so he’s thrilled when a ritzy out-of-towner arrives in his office with what appears to be an easy job. But the client later gets shot one night in Harry’s office.
Harry’s twelve-year-old daughter Dizzy (short for Desdemona) is a delight—spunky and too intelligent for her own good. She starts her own business, a lost-and-found, in the family garage along with her two best friends, Mel and B.D. A Nancy Drew fan, Dizzy wants to be a P.I. just like her dad rather than follow in the footsteps of her mother, a professor.
This is a fun, intriguing mystery with P.I. lingo like that used in Hawaii Five-0 and 77 Sunset Strip. Dizzy used the same linguistics to comic effect. The father and daughter have a unique, touching relationship. The book is worth reading for that alone. I’ll definite read further novels in this series.
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