Logan's Storm - Ken Wells

Ken Wells's gritty bayou trilogy began with Meely LeBauve, a book I randomly picked up at a used bookstore a couple years ago. Meely was a 12 year old kid who had lost his mom many years before. Meely's father Logan, unable to cope with his grief, turned to the bottle and retreated deeper into the Louisiana swamp land. Meely was mostly left to take care of himself and doing a pretty good job of it, until he got on the bad side of the town bully, Junior. It didn't help matters that Meely's saviour happened to be a black man named Chilly and that Junior had relatives in the sheriff's department. The story, all told from the perspective of Meely was a fun youthful adventure. I then skipped to the third book in the series, Logan's Storm, which focuses (as you might guess) on Meely's father Logan - now on the run helping Chilly to escape the corrupt cops and avoid Southern prosecution for the crime of saving Meely from injustice. Their adventure take them through the bayou, subsisting on possum and catfish and whatever hospitality they can muster along the way. Here and there Logan remembers a story about Meely and his deceased wife Elizabeth - and I found these stories touching and sometimes humorous. But, otherwise, the escape seemed to drag on and I tired of reading about yet another night sleeping in a hollowed out tree trying to avoid the torential rains. The biggest problem about this book for me is that it is an adventure story perfect for a kid - but all it does is focus on the boring adults. Even though it wasn't Wells's plan, I would have much preferred to read another book about Meely.